The rest of the story

After deciding a few years ago to raise our children in the instruction and admonition of our Lord, my wife and I were confronted with the question of "HOW?" How do we teach/guide these little ones into a loving relationship with Jesus? Our first instinct was to read them the Bible but for some reason that didn't seem enough (more on this later!). Surely there was a more effective way of teaching them God's truths, values, and morals. Hadn't entire ministries and aisles of books been developed and built to show us the way to powerful parenting/discipling techniques designed to bring our kids to Jesus? So off to the Christian book store we went. Shortly after, laden with devotional material for each of the ages and sexes of our children, we began to disciple our children.
The devotional booklets were good and full of strong Biblical truths. But something was nagging at me. Not sure that we were doing all that we could, my wife and I enrolled in a parenting class/conference. (I highly recommend it, by the way. It was a valuable tool in leading us to a more Biblical form of parenting: http://www.parentingministry.org/ ) Things were improving all the time and our children were responding but something was still missing. The children's ministries at our church were and are incredibly blessed by the Holy Spirit; our children loved their godly leaders...but something still lacked. As my wife and I started to dig deeper into God's Word we became fully convinced that the example we set and modeled was more important than everything we had done heretofore. Our relationship with and transformation in Jesus was what they could see every day. But there was still one more piece of the puzzle yet remaining (...and I'm sure there are more waiting to be found!)...but this little piece is one I must share with you.
One night, after our devotionals with the kids, one of the girls asked an incredibly pertinent question about one of the Bible characters (Joseph...Jacob's son) the devotional had briefly mentioned. I sat down on the bed with her and her sisters and easily launched into a half hour story about him, his family, his triumphs, his failures. My years of Bible reading, church attendance, and Bible studies came flooding back as I told them the stories of Abraham and Issac and Jacob and Esau...my wife had to cut me off!! But I left the story hanging...and told the girls I would continue it the next night. We never went back to the devotionals. Every day (sometimes at the dinner table, sometimes before bed, sometimes in the car) we would pick up where I had left off the last time and just talk about the Bible. For those first couple of weeks, I mainly just hit the highlights and we quickly found ourselves in Revelation. I told them what I knew and directly consulted the pages of the Word for specific details that eluded me. But for the most part, I imparted the Word to them in as faithful and relevant manner as I could. Then we just started over in Genesis. That following jaunt through the Scriptures took a little longer as I covered more of the stories and characters...sometimes studying a little in advance. This current and third run has been much more detailed and longer and full of Spirit-inspired applications for the children that no devotional ever could have compared to.
Our initial instinct of reading them the Bible had come to fruition! It really was all we needed. Every night the kids can't wait to hear the "rest of the story". They are remembering and identifying characters/stories/concepts from the Word. Even the little ones are absorbing truth. They have been taken through the Bible three times now. By the time they leave our clutches, I fully expect to have guided them through the Word 20-30 times. My oldest is already asking to tell the part of the stories he knows to the younger ones. At 7 he is beginning to teach the Bible!! Thank you Lord. His Word really is sufficient for all the answers to life and living. I pray that you and I, dear reader, may immerse ourselves in God's Word and then just let it flow into the lives of our children, our youth, our coworkers, our friends, our family, our neighbors. Because it doesn't stop with just the children.