One of the most unexpectedly beneficial books I have read is called How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber. It is far from a biblical book, but it makes the point that many meltdowns from toddlers come from feeling not listened to and not being able to communicate.
That leads into this article, that one of the most important things we can do in our lives and for our children is focus our attention. I’m writing this article in the solitude of a café waiting for my next meeting at work, my attention is focused on writing. Human beings, despite our pride, are not—and never will be—good at multitasking. When I’m teaching or playing with my kids I make every attempt to be there fully, not pulled between work or my phone or writing. I recently attended an online conference for work and at several points I had to lock the door to the office because by dividing my attention between kids running in and the speaker on the screen led to both getting far less than even 50% of my attention.
Attention is so important in my life that I’m writing a dissertation on teaching it to the church. My primary text is Nehemiah 8, “And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law…Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people…and as he opened it all the people stood.” Long story short, the best way to hear God is by really being attentive to his Word, to remove distractions, and to realize the value in hearing, responding to, and applying it. This is reiterated over and over throughout the Bible, many preachers have pointed out that they have seminary degrees in preaching, but no-one ever receives a degree in listening, when the Bible teaches much more on listening than preaching (Boice, Piper, MacArthur, etc). Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Luke 8:8).”
The importance of undivided attention cannot be overstated when listening to the Word of God. But that is not the only place you should learn to focus your attention. When interacting with people it is important as well. A child who doesn’t feel listened to is a child who is prone to feel out of control, unloved, and hopeless. Try it the next time you have a temper tantrum, hold the child until they are calm, then work through what they wanted and see if you can’t figure out how they were asking for it.
One of the greatest joys in our life was the day, not so long ago, when our twins learned to buckle their own car seats. This is only partial hyperbole, it truly is a burden lifted not to always be climbing into the back of the car to latch them in. On Wednesday my attentive wife pulled out of the driveway and Titus cried out, “Oh no! You’re driving!” and proceeded to lose his little mind. It took a few moments but my wife encouraged him to use his words and all he could get out was, “I’m going to die!” A little more prodding and she discovered that, “I’m not buckled!” She was then able to pull over and get the troublesome latch buckled and he did not, in fact, die.
Now, being attentive to your spouse, your kids, your coworkers, and your Saviour can play out in a million ways and I’m not going to try to—nor could I—give you an authoritative list of do’s and don’ts. But I will give you a couple and some principles.
Notice in Nehemiah 8 the full attention of the people led them to “stand up” when the Word was read. This was not, as some have surmised, “out of respect for the reading of God’s Word”, this was to focus their attention on what they were about to do. Always stop what you’re doing when something worthy of your attention arises.
Always stand up when greeting someone, always put your phone down when someone asks you a question, pause your podcast and remove your headphones (both!) if you need to speak to someone, close out your last conversation/project before starting the next one. Don't be easily distracted from an important task or conversation.
My two-year-old is in the “Come with/Come see” stage and she lifts her little hand up and squeezes to say grab my hand! I don’t want to squash that in the least so I happily grab her hand and go see. Just because it might not be groundbreaking to me doesn’t mean it’s not important to her, and I want to be involved in her growth and let her know that I pay attention to what is important to her.
So, beloved, take every opportunity to be focusing your attention, reject multi-tasking, and love your kids by listening to them and participating in their lives.
When it comes to children’s devotions or books on the Bible
there are no lack of options, but unfortunately, finding a good one is a
difficult task. Charles Spurgeon said, “It does seem to me as if some people
say, ‘Here is a place of worship. There is sure to be a sermon, let us go in
and hear it.’ Ah! but all that is preached is not Gospel and it is not all
hearing that will be valuable to your souls.” It does seem to me that many
people say, “Here is an illustrated book on the Bible for children, let’s open
it and learn some truth.” But not all that is drawn or paraphrased is Gospel and not all children’s books are valuable for your children’s souls!
I'm writing this post to encourage you in my three favorite
resources, and to warn you against one of the most popular.
The One Year Bible for Children – V.
Gilbert Beers
First, by far the best from an under-10 year-old standpoint is The
NLT One Year Bible for Children by V. Gilbert Beers. This is an
illustrated book working through the Bible in chronological order over one year, it
lays a good foundation of Bible stories and most importantly it continues to
tell the Bible story in one contiguous narrative. Quotations are taken directly
from the Bible and I’ve yet to find a devotion that was not biblical.
The illustrations are phenomenal, and I don’t use that word
lightly. Even if you don’t have children I’d recommend this book purely from an
artistic value. When Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River bed the
painting clearly depicts dry dust coming up from the feet of those crossing.
This level of detail is one that is repeated in many of the stories. It’s not
my intention to tell you all of the awesome paintings in this book, but be sure
there are many that will astonish you.
The application in the Old Testament is sometimes lacking, but
the stories are always faithfully told. Many times the quality of the story has
taken us to places that a wooden application would have constrained us in. For
example, yesterday’s devotion was on the men who stayed back with the baggage
when David destroyed the Amalekites. The application mentioned nothing about
the different members of the body or the different members of the church or
different roles we all fulfill, but that’s where we went and had an
entertaining and beneficial conversation about if we were made up of only eyes
or ears or feet.
The greatest failing is that Jesus is almost always left out
of the Old Testament. Especially in the story of the Bronze Serpent lifted up
by Moses I though that Beers should have at least mentioned that the story was
quoted in John 3. I could almost defend him however, that maybe he is
considering that if children know the Old Testament reference then when they
are reading the New Testament they will draw their own connections instead of
being explicitly told about it.
So, I recommend this book with the caveat that you need to be
prepared to share the application or at least help your children flesh out the
Gospel story. Each lesson is short, ten minutes or less, but the quality of the
content makes it beneficial if you only read it to your children, or if that
reading leads into a much deeper conversation.
Long Story Short – Marty Machowski
The second devotional I recommend is Long
Story Short by Marty Machowski. This book is for older kids, I’d say this one really works for kids over five, and that might be a tad too young. Long
Story Short takes a single narrative and spends five days fleshing it
out. This really drives the point of the story home and adds on it every day.
Parents, where this book is not easy is that you can’t just
pick it up and go, it requires some preplanning and some sort of preparation.
For example, one lesson requires you to have a trumpet or a kazoo (or anywhere
in between) to blow at the walls of Jericho. I found this out after we started
reading that particular devotional and had to scramble to make something work.
Of course, the kids loved the trumpet played in the house and trying to make it
make noise itself, but if you’re looking for a book you can just pick up at the
end of the day and let it do all of the work, this book will not work for you.
I love the idea of this book and the depth, but I think five
days is too long for a children’s devotional. When we pick it back up in a year
or two we’ll modify it a bit, either compressing each story into three days, or
intertwining them so that it’s not always the same story.
However, the emphasis on the Gospel is wonderful and it
introduces children to the depth of Bible study in a way that is both fun,
engaging, and most importantly, memorable.
Built Upon the Rock – Brooke Snyder
My third favorite is Built Upon the
Rock: Devotions for the First Years by Dr. Brooke Snyder. Now, I
have to confess that Dave and Brooke Snyder are dear friends of ours and our
copy is not only signed, but was a gift. But, it is also masterfully written
and comes with a passion for child rearing that is not manufactured just to
write a book, but because the Snyder’s truly love their children and want them
to know Jesus, and want to help you help your children known Jesus.
Built Upon the Rock is
written on the premise that we don’t want there ever to be a time in our
child’s life where they did not hear the name of Jesus in the home, or know the
power of the Gospel.
Unlike the other two books, this is not a yearly devotional,
but a collection of great ideas to teach deep spiritual truths to growing
minds. However, Brooke identifies that if you take one devotional a week, it
will cover a year. It has been several years since I read this book, and in
writing this it has spurred me to read it again, but the truly important thing
that I have taken away from this book is that you are never too young to be
building a spiritual foundation.
Recently my kids were playing with playdough
and because of this book I though it would be a great time to consider
spiritual things. We grabbed a rock of similar size to a lump of playdough and
took turns trying to form the rock and the playdough into something. Readily
enough my kids learned the meaning of a malleable heart. But then we took that
playdough and pulled it in every direction and learned why being too pliable,
pulled around by every influence, is bad as well.
While I don’t think this is a devotion from the book, the idea
of it certainly came from Brooke’s influence in my life, and for that reason
I’ll be forever grateful.
In order to set your heart, dear parent, on spiritual training
of your children, I recommend this book to you.
The Jesus Storybook Bible – Sally Lloyd-Jones
Arguably the most influential children’s devotional of recent
times is The
Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name by Sally
Lloyd-Jones. This is one of my least favorite devotionals, and one I want
to caution you from reading to your children.
First, though, the Jesus Storybook Bible does
make a very good point that Jesus can be found in every story of the Bible. I
know at least one person who has been deeply helped by this point and I am glad
for that.
Second, some of the details are very useful, especially the
mention of the little girl of 2 Kings 5:2 who sent Naaman to God's man for
help. There are gleanings from this devotional.
However, the most important thing about this book is that it
is NOT a Bible. It makes no effort to follow the biblical dialogue and
regularly injects unbiblical language. Second, it is far from exhaustive, it
spends a lot of time in the Pentateuch and a spackling through the prophets,
but then BAM, you’re in the New Testament without any mention of the Bible that
has been left out.
But most importantly, Sally Lloyd-Jones has arguably ridden
into the lime-light on the power and credibility of her last name. Only
recently has there been any discernible effort to make the distinction that she
bears ZERO relation to Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. Her theology, her writing, and
her understanding of the Gospel fall far short of the Doctor.
Cody Libolt has written a masterful argument about this
devotional and that the main theme of God’s glory, grace, and wrath is utterly
missing from Lloyd-Jones’ book. I encourage you to read his article
called, The
Core Theme of the Jesus Storybook Bible is Wrong.
The Bible
Finally, I know more than one family who have opted to read
from the source itself, the Bible, to teach children. Beloved, I think there is
great wisdom in this, but also a great danger. The first time I tried to read
the Bible I was sixteen and started in Genesis 1. I don’t think I got past
about Genesis 5 before setting it down. Why? Because I was not spiritually
discerned. Neither are our children. Keep that in mind as you take them through
the Bible, they aren’t able or interested in knowing the nuances of who begot
who or who married who or the exegetical jewels of the book of Leviticus, or the intricacies of eschatology.
My five year old, three year olds, and two year old don’t like
steak. It blows my mind, if I cut it up really fine like it’s hamburger then
they’ll eat it, but my five year old recently told her grandmother, “I don’t like steak,
my daddy likes steak, but I don’t like steak.” She even made a terrible face to drive the point home...Thank God for her candor. My two
year old, on the other hand, practically lives off of milk. She drinks so much
milk you’d think she was a calf. This is exacerbated by the fact that she
recently learned to fill up her own cup.
Conclusion
So, as you’re teaching your kids from the Bible or a
devotional, keep in mind that the most beautiful fillet mignon of a Bible study
served up to a toddler is going to end up picked at, discarded, and asking for
a snack later. Whether you're cutting up the Bible yourself so that your kids
can digest it, or you're hiring someone to help you, keep in mind that children
think like children, so teach them in a way that they can grasp but that points
them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I like The
One Year Bible, Long
Story Short, and Built Upon the Rock because
they have served up the Bible in small bite-size chunks for your kids to
digest, enjoy, and move towards those meaty studies that will come later in
their lives.
