How many times have you tried to have some kind of family devotion or Bible time? It is so hard to be consistent, and many parents give up. You are not alone in your struggle, and I want to offer a few suggestions to help.
When you try to find that perfect time to have your family devotion, Bible reading or worship time, you will come across obstacles.
Finding Time Is Hard
You’re a busy parent with many commitments and pressures pulling you in all directions. So it is easy to feel like it is impossible to add one more thing to the daily grind. But you also know how important it is to have a family time with God. You want to be intentional and lead your child to read the Bible and to pray. Here are five factors to have a family time with God.
1. Don’t Look Back
If you’ve tried to have family devotion time before and it just hasn’t worked, move on. Take notice of the reasons it didn’t work. Be honest with yourself and with your family about those times that crowd out your devotion time out. Sometimes parents are just too tired to keep it up. Then, there are those times the kids are sick. Whenever you encounter an interruption, try to make time on another day or time.
2. Choose a Time That Works
This might be the hardest step. The time that worked for us was just before bedtime. Maybe that will work for you. But if it doesn’t, find the time that will. Maybe it is before work and school. The idea is to make a commitment to consistency, not an appointment. Families need structure as well as flexibility.
3. Choose a Frequency That Works
If you have young children, a short daily family time might work well for you. Three to five minutes might be all their little attention spans can go. If you have teenagers, a longer weekly time might work best for you. If you have children in two different age groups, you have a greater challenge. Again, strive for consistency and a frequency that works.
4. Be Flexible
As soon as you try a rigid and inflexible plan, the Enemy will develop a number of reasons to throw you off track. Flexibility in your plan is most desirable, especially if the ages of your children are spread by more than a few years. If you have older children, give them responsibilities to read to the younger ones.
5. Stay With It
Do what it takes to make your family devotion time work. Put the time on your calendar if you need to. Protect the time. Be persistent as well as consistent. If you miss one or two, don’t count it as failure. Just start back up again. Your overall goal is to train your children to develop their own personal devotional time so that when they are grown, they will continue growing in their faith and knowledge of the Lord.
Your Plan
So, your Family Devotion Time plan will take place when best for everyone in the family, as often as everyone can, with a commitment to persistent consistency. Keep it going. And never lose sight of that overall goal: To develop their own personal time with the Lord in Bible reading, Bible study and prayer.
What do you think?
I’d love to hear from you. Would you share what has a worked and what has not worked?
Leave a Reply