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Many years ago I got in the practice of doing a daily devotion, and taking some time each day to read scripture and pray. When I began to be really intentional about doing this, my children were young, my husband and I were both working, and my biggest challenge was figuring out the best time of day to do it.
I began to experiment. First I tried getting up before everyone to have some quiet time with God – my quiet time often seemed to be interrupted by the pitter patter of little feet. Hearing that sound meant my few moments of quiet were coming to an end, so I would put everything away and vow to try again later.
I then attempted to take some quiet time after the kids went to bed. This seemed like a good idea, until I noticed myself nodding off in the middle of prayers. If I wasn't nodding off, my mind was wandering. I began thinking about my long list of “things to do,” the schedule for the next day, the bills that needed to get paid… the list went on and on. Then I would remember that I was supposed to be praying, or doing my devotions and I would hastily apologize to God and try to get focused again.
I could quickly see that this wasn't going to work.
Plan C was to try to do it during my lunch break at work. This seemed to work well for me for quite some time. Then came “that day.” The day that changed my perspective on a lot of things.
My children and I were doing our evening ritual together. This ritual included a time of blessing, prayer, and reading from their Children's Bible. My son looked up at me and said, “Mom, why don't you ever read your Bible?”
I was dumbfounded. I had been in the practice of reading my Bible every day. Not only was I reading the Bible every day as a personal practice, but I work in a church – reading the Bible is often part of my job. But because I was never doing it around my kids, and I was never talking about what I was reading or my own spiritual journey or practices, my kids had no idea.
I mentioned the conversation to a friend later that week. She shared with me that she had never realized that faith had been important to her mom until she was an adult, because they never talked about it at home. They went to church every Sunday but her mom did all her Bible studies and other involvement in things while she was gone at school – and they never really talked about it.
I let that sink in a little bit. I realized our kids are watching our actions and what we are modeling for them more than we ever realize.
So that day, I made a promise to myself that things at our house would be different. We would take time to read our Bibles together, but also, I would read my Bible in front of the kids, so they could see me doing it. I would try to make sure faith conversations happened often.
When someone asks my kids if faith was important to their mom, I want them to have no doubt.
Twenty five years from now, when someone asks your kids if your faith was important to you, what will your kids say and why?
