In the Dailies

“Please! Please, Mommy! Puh-lease!!”

Normally one would expect such zealous begging in relation to candies or a new toy. Every day this week I’ve heard these passionate supplications from my four-year-old. What does she want? Not food or TV or even time with her friends. She wants me to teach her about the Bible. I’m not kidding. I’m not exaggerating. I am shocked.

Let me back up just a touch. I’m currently leading a Bible study at our church on the book of Ruth. We’ve got a great group of moms participating in a fun in-depth discussion every month. I’m loving it! 

Like most biblical characters, Ruth is not isolated from other people and events recorded. She’s a Moabite, a descendant of Lot (by way of  incest with his daughter). Then Ruth, after her first husband dies, marries Boaz, the son of Rahab (the prostitute who helped the Israelite spies in Jericho) and further descendant of Tamar (the woman who secretly seduced her father-in-law, Judah, in order to preserve her deceased husband’s name and lineage) in whose name Ruth is blessed at the end of her short book. With Boaz, Ruth conceives Obed who fathers Jesse who then fathers David the King. David, as we all know, is a direct ancestor of Jesus the Christ. 

Needless to say, all these connections can be a bit confusing. In prep for our next meeting, I drew the family tree, complete from Abraham to King David, on a giant white board. This has been sitting in our partially finished dining room all week. Every time Ellie sees it, she asks me to teach her.

The first time I only half-heartedly explained who people were. After all, she is four and I expected her to lose interest after about three minutes or as soon as she saw something shiny. But she kept coming back to that board. She kept asking questions. So I kept teaching her.

Most recently, three days after she discovered my big board, we filled almost two hours with in-depth story telling. She can recite the paternal genealogy through six generations without any help and without being able to read! (Well, she can read a little, but her skills don’t extend beyond three- and four-letter rhyming words.) We covered God’s promise to Abraham all the way through Joseph and the seven-year famine, the Israelites moving to Egypt and becoming slaves, the plagues, the Red Sea, the twelve spies and the wandering in the desert. Finally, I had to stop. Laundry awaited, Zach begged for attention, and neighbors knocked on the door to remind me I still hadn’t shoveled the sidewalk.

As I carried the board back to its storage spot, Ellie pleaded: “Mama, will you please teach me more later? Tonight after Daddy gets home? Please, please!”

When was the last time you begged God to teach you something? I know I’ve asked Him to show me something in His Word, but my requests are always subdued, expecting the same old, same old time of cognitive interaction with Scripture. But when was the last time I chased God, pleading with Him for spiritual insights? And expecting something awesome and stimulating as a result of that request?

Deb Burton frequently uses this tagline for her site: “Do you see your home as a mission field? It is, you know.” This short question, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, always startles me back to reality. Yes, my home is a mission field. Am I giving this mission the same energy and enthusiasm I poured into Bosnia ten years ago? Am I tackling it the way I would a church-plant in Asia or a humanitarian relief effort in Africa?

So I have two questions for you.

1. What if we catered to our children’s innate curiosities with spiritual lessons? What if we took advantage of their sponge-like ability to learn and planted seeds of faith there daily, consistently, passionately?
2. What if WE had that same insatiable desire to learn about God and His Word?

“When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you.
If you seek me with all your heart and soul, I will make myself available to you,’ says the Lord.”
Jeremiah 29:13-14a (NET)

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Luke 11:9-10 (NIV)

“Memorize these laws and think about them. Write down copies and tie them to your wrists and your foreheads to help you obey them. Teach them to your children. Talk about them all the time–whether you’re at home or walking along the road or going to bed at night, or getting up in the morning.”
Deuteronomy 11:18-19 (CEV)