Did you know that God has ordained parents to be their children’s teachers? Deuteronomy 6:5-7 reads:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Parents are teachers. Our children learn from us, whether good or bad, positive or negative. Deuteronomy 6:5-7 shows us what God wants us to teach as well as how He wants us to teach our children.
According to Deuteronomy 6:5-7, God calls us to teach our children in everyday occurrences and circumstances. As parents who are homeschoolers, our responsibility to teach our children does not stop when that day’s academic instructions are completed. We are to continually teach our children what it means to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength. Daily opportunities abound ~ at the breakfast table, during academic instruction, while we run errands, during the drive to soccer practice and home from the same. God gives us the opportunities ~ we just need to be alert to them!
For most of us, the ability to recognize and use everyday happenings to teach our children doesn’t come naturally. It is a skill that must be developed. Like most skills, it requires purposeful effort on our part. We can purpose in our hearts to take every opportunity available to teach our children the ways and commandments of the Lord. By doing so, we bless our children, and we honor God and bring glory to His name.
Effective, timely teaching must be an overflow of our lives ~ we can’t share with our children what we don’t know ourselves. The right words won’t automatically roll from our lips. We must be fellowshipping with God and studying His Word in order to be able to teach our children about Him. Our ability to pass on God’s commandments depends on our knowing Him ourselves.
Using all of life to impress God’s truth on the lives of our children is a profound challenge! Thankfully we have a God Who loves us, and Who loves “our children” (who are really His children) more than we can ever imagine. Isn’t it only right that we do all we can to make our children’s lives a learning environment?
We have so much to learn, so much to teach. May God bless our efforts, no matter how small or large, to accomplish His purposes in our children’s lives!
Trish is a homeschooling mom of 13 years. You can read her family blog here.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Awesome, awesome and timely post. Thanks for sharpening my sword, sister. I needed this one today.
The whole thing spoke to me, but this quote really stood out:
“Effective, timely teaching must be an overflow of our lives ~ we can’t share with our children what we don’t know ourselves. The right words won’t automatically roll from our lips. We must be fellowshipping with God and studying His Word in order to be able to teach our children about Him.”
Trish – this is the confirmation scripture the Lord gave me 6 years ago when i began to homeschool. Thanks for posting such a great devotion. Love it.
Valerie
That’s so true! Even when we find mold on a piece of bread, we take the opportunity to discuss how our lives can become moldy before the eyes of the Lord, and how not properly storing the bread can cause it to become stale as well. Etc etc etc… I love that verse!
A recent biology unti spawned an in depth discussion on abortion, and my 15 yr old daughter was in tears about the subject.
This was awesome! Thanks for sharing with us the wisdom God has given you.
Great post!
Our verse today was Colossians 3:23 and wouldn’t you know we’d have to use it before the day was through multiple times over. God has a great way of putting scripture in our minds as parents to help us with our children throughout the day.
God bless,
Sallie
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