Family Friday: Making Family Devotions Happen

Like any Christian, my desire was teaching my children Biblical truths and instilling in them a love for my heavenly Father. I wanted to confidently fulfill my responsibilities and to live out Deuteronomy 4:9 “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;” 

I pictured the scene in my mind: A family gathered in a living room, the morning sun pouring in. A sense of peace fills the room as a confident and prepared father leads his family in learning from the Word of God. His wife smiles—she is content, rested, and supportive. The children are not just attentive, but fascinated with their father’s instruction. Unity abounds and time stands still as children ask questions and everyone enjoys their time so much that they forget all about moving on to the rest of the day.

In spite of my high hopes, each time I resolved to live my desires out, I became besieged with interruptions, complications, and deteriorating enthusiasm. Too often pressing business needs, home repairs, or other issues sabotaged my good intentions.

Can you relate to my continual frustration? Small children, business needs, ministry and church involvement, household chores. I kept hoping that as soon as we worked through the current big project, the next looming event, or the latest obstacle, I would get into the habit of actively teaching my children and loving my wife as I dreamed of doing.

These are all reasons for my own failure in this area, but upon examining my heart closely, I found that the real reason I couldn’t live out what I knew was right was because I didn’t take God’s commands to fathers seriously. Taking leadership and demonstrating sacrificial love were really good ideas, something that I knew I should do. However, I obviously didn’t really believe that God thought training my kids in His Word was essential to their daily lives, because I wasn’t doing it. The smaller projects and responsibilities that could have been put off somehow always took precedence over what I knew in my heart was my responsibility.

We have found that a key to making these goals work out practically is to have enough structure to make our time as a family predictable and feasible, while staying flexible for days when we aren’t able to meet together. When we can’t spend time together in the morning, I try to take an opportunity later in the evening.

I know that our daily time, roughly 30 minutes to an hour in length, is going to influence future generations. This is time in which I am passing on my love for God’s Word. It is time in which we seek God as a family for things that concern us. It is time to build bonds and create memories that will strengthen each one of our children for the rest of their lives.