"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words I command you today shall be on your heart." Deuteronomy 6:5-6
Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. Know today that [I do] not [speak] with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of the LORD your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm...what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place...but your eyes have seen every great act of the LORD which He did... Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today...Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes...You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. - Deuteronomy 11:1-2,5,7,8,18-19
Every night I tuck them in bed after hurried mornings in a divided house; away all day eye-ball deep in the damaging effects of sin on and in our children, while they are in someone else's care and under someone else's teaching in this Egypt I live.
And when I read to them from the scriptures, or talk to them about a spiritual truth, or unpack to them some more of the nature of God as revealed in Christ and proclaim the gospel to them like the momma-preacher I sometimes become and they have a glazed over look in their eyes, and they sigh and start fidgeting around, and interrupt, and are obviously not captivated with what I am pouring my heart out to impress upon them, I remember Deuteronomy 6 and 11. And I am renewed in faith and spurred on to remember its my being in love with God, and his words being on my heart, and because I have "seen"the chastening of the LORD in my own life and have experienced his work in my life, I am the one who's going to be passionate and motivated in love and obedience to the One who has captivated me with His great love... not my children.
Not yet anyway.
That doesn't mean they won't be captivated one day themselves. I pray they will. I trust they will.
But for now, for now with a heart on fire and hands that serve them and a life laid down to nurture and teach them, I talk with them about this great God, who I love, and about his ways- which are wonderful and always good- and His amazing story and how he redeems and their only hope. I talk with them when we're doing our everyday stuff and when I get 5 minutes to tuck them in at night. And I entrust the seed to the One who gives it life and who promised it will accomplish the purpose for which he sent it out of this momma's mouth.
Quieted,
Sheila
