My wife once said… “If someone is going to influence our children’s beliefs, I’d rather it be us than someone else.”  I agreed!

Toward that end as Christians, my wife and I embarked on our plan to program our children’s heart and mind… God willing.  We decided to take the approach found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9…

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

For us that meant we would not relegate faith or intellect to just church on Sunday or school on Monday through Friday.  WE would live what we believe each day in front of them.  They would observe us living out what we believe Sunday through Saturday.  They watched us live every day in good and bad times… in our success and failures… during the ups and downs of life.  We determined to make God, Jesus, and The Spirit part of our ongoing conversations with them as they grew into adulthood… and still do today (Picture: Britton, Amy, Trey November of 2012).

To this point in our children’s lives… they are all believers, they are in relationships (Married, engaged, and….?) with Christians from Christian families.  They all love God and have a heart to follow and honor Him in all they do.  They also (By God’s grace) have a level of spiritual maturity that Pam and I praise God for.

Parents and Grandparents must teach their children and grand-children diligently to love God… to honor Him in all things at all times… by example.  Then trust God with the outcome for His glory.