One of my favorite pastimes on a balmy spring afternoon is watching a mallard lead her ducklings around a pond. Just a few days old, the ducklings swim behind her, secure in her closeness.

What important days those must be for the mother duck! In only another month or so, her youngsters will be striking out on their own. Will they know how to find food? Will they be prepared to escape the hungry jaws of a predator? Will they know how to find a place of shelter from the approaching winter winds? Her training, to be completed in a matter of weeks, will affect the future of those precious ducklings.

As I watch those ducklings follow so closely, I often think of my own three children, growing quickly toward maturity. My husband and I want to prepare our children to meet whatever challenges they will face when they set out on their own. Like most parents, we want them to be successful and happy. But our primary goal is to teach them to live as Christians and to walk with the Lord.

It has been estimated that fathers typically devote less than two minutes a day to quality conversation with their children. In one study, fathers spent less than 37 seconds per day communicating with their preschool children!¹ Even mothers, who may spend more time in the physical presence of their children, are often too busy to listen carefully to their concerns or to teach them important values. There have been many nights when I have lain in bed wishing I had imparted something more meaningful to my children than how to clean their rooms or brush their teeth!

God instructed Israel, "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds . . .. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up" (Dt. 11:18–19). Yet most Christian families are unable to successfully maintain a devotional time together. How can Christian parents transfer their values to their children and prepare them to lead a Christian life in the short time they have?

After our third child was born, my husband and I felt the need to spend time daily with our children in Bible study. They were receiving excellent training through our church and their private Christian school, but we wanted to have more input at home. We knew the training done in our home would have a greater impact on our children than anything they learned elsewhere throughout the week. Here are some guidelines we discovered.

Make Devotions a Part of Your Daily Schedule.

Busyness seems to be the American way. Most days are full from morning until bedtime, and many parents assume there is no time for daily family devotions. The important is lost for the sake of the urgent.

Ephesians 5:15–16 warns, "Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." When can a family find time to study the Word of God together?

Mealtimes provide one opportunity for family sharing. Read a portion of Scripture before the evening meal or serve a short devotional before dessert. One family we know gathers just before bedtime. The children go to bed with thoughts of the Lord on their minds.

Early morning can be an ideal time. One family we know has a devotional time after breakfast, when the hubbub of morning responsibilities has diminished.

In some families, one parent has to leave the house before the children have risen. A father we know records a devotional on a cassette tape at night. His wife plays it for their preschool children the next morning.

Our family spends time with the Lord before breakfast. When my husband first suggested early morning devotions, I thought, Oh no! Not another thing to do in the morning! To my surprise, we all became more organized and worked together better when we began to turn our thoughts first to the Lord.

Provide Notebooks for Your Family.

The Scriptures say God's Word is more desirable than gold (Ps. 19:10), and most of us would certainly dig for gold if we knew where to find it. As you dig into the Bible for "gold nuggets," you and your children will need a place to record your discoveries. Besides reinforcing what you study, taking notes helps children develop penmanship, listening skills, and spelling skills that will help them with their schoolwork. A small yellow, lined notepad or steno book works well. The treasures recorded in these notebooks will encourage you when you wonder if the time spent together is worth the effort. We found these words in one "gold nugget" notebook: "Build a house in your heart for Jesus."

Consider the Ages and Attention Span of Your family.

Edith Schaeffer says "a family is an intricate mobile made up of human personalities . . .. No two years are the same, and  . . . the mobile which is the family has many new patterns and combinations ahead."² Keep in mind that your devotional time should change in length and nature as your children grow.

If family devotions are new to you, begin with a brief period—ten to fifteen minutes. Setting aside time for the Word of God as a family will grow into a discipline. Our children may be much better prepared to lead an ordered life than their parents, if we were never trained to set aside time for God daily.

There are many ways to make your family devotions meaningful for children of all ages:

†Use a picture Bible for very young children.

†For young readers, a gift of an easy-to-read children's Bible will enhance your study time. Our daughter still treasures her first Bible that she could read herself, even though she has outgrown it by several years. The International Children's Version (Sweet Publishing Co., 1978) is geared for a third-grade reading level. The New International Version and New American Standard Bible are both written in a readable style.

†Make or purchase a set of verse-of-the-day cards in a translation that is easy to read.

†Use a dictionary to help children understand new words.

Be Creative!

You need not use the same approach each time you meet.

†Spend your time together just reading aloud.

†Read a devotional thought that accompanies the Scripture you are studying.

†Apply the six news reporters' questions to a passage you have read: who, what, where, when, how, and why?

†Use puppets.

†Plan a drama to make the story come alive.

†Read a psalm and let each person "give" a verse from it to another member of the family for that day.

†Think of and discuss a quality of God that corresponds to each letter of the alphabet and, with the help of a concordance, find Scriptures that support or refute your ideas.

†Rewrite a passage in your own words. (For example, our son rephrased Prov. 29:6 to read, "A robber runs right into the police and a Christian's prayers are answered.")

†Go through your church's Statement of Faith and find the scriptural foundation for each point.

†Focus on the words of Christ from a red-letter edition of the New Testament.

†Use visual aids. One day my husband used a napkin to demonstrate how Jesus was separated from the presence of God at the moment of His death. The next morning one child greeted him with, "Are you going to tear another napkin today, Daddy?"

Anticipate Needs.

Setting aside time for family devotions gives you the privilege of addressing your family's spiritual needs. Does a child need to sense his specialness to God? Meditate on Psalm 139 together. Does he have difficulty standing alone against peer pressure? Read the story of Daniel and his friends in Daniel 1–4. Do you want your children to be prepared to resist temptation? Choose friends wisely? Handle their finances properly? Then enjoy the pithy lessons of Proverbs. Is your child's school teaching evolution or ancient man? Read Genesis, the book of beginnings. You may never know what crises have been averted because of your daily study of God's Word.

Make Memorization a Family Project.

Memorizing Scripture together creates a sense of unity as family members meet deadlines and are held accountable to one another. It is amazing how, by adding just one verse a week, the Word of God becomes a part of your thinking process. We have chosen Sunday as a day to memorize one verse together.

Memorizing also develops mental toughness:

Anything you do with your brain exercises it. The more reasoning you do, the easier it is to go on to new reasoning. The ability to memorize also improves with practice. Robert S. Woodworth, professor emeritus of Columbia University, estimated that the time required to memorize anything can, with practice, be reduced as much as two thirds.³

Often, our whole family memorizes the same Scripture. When the children were very young, we memorized a verse for each letter of the alphabet: "All we like sheep have gone astray," "Be ye kind to one another," "Christ died for our sins," etc. Later, Psalm 139 permeated our minds with the specialness of our creation and how precious we were to God even before birth. First Peter 1 has taught us the value of trials and the greatness of God's plan of salvation.

We have also memorized different passages. My husband and son learned one verse of their choice from each chapter of Proverbs while my daughter and I memorized one verse from each chapter of the Gospel of John. Another time, our nine-year-old son read the entire New Testament and memorized one verse from each book. We cherish the overview of the New Testament he developed from that reading and memory work.

When our daughter was five, my husband challenged her to memorize Ephesians 4. I was skeptical, but she did it! We all basked in her joy at that accomplishment, and it challenged many adults when they heard what she had done. Afterward, we noticed she became instantly alert if the pastor happened to use a verse from "her" chapter in a sermon. It was as if someone had called her name!

Use Practical Assignments and Family Goals.

Matthew 7:24–25 says, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock."

We have used our morning devotional time as a spur to do what we have heard. Some goals have been:

†Talk to someone about Jesus today.

†Think about the Lord's return.

†Remind yourself that God loves you.

†Reach out in kindness to another.

†Claim a promise from Scripture.

At dinnertime we tell each other if we have accomplished our goals. Setting goals helps us take our faith out of our home and into the world.

Be Aware of Side Benefits.

God will bless your family devotional time in many ways. You will see your children's vocabularies increase and their reading skills grow. Your family will gain happy memories to share. We still chuckle when we think of the "fractured Bible verses" our daughter created when she was just learning to read: "Never a man spanked as this man" (Jn. 7:46); "His grace is sufficient for three" (2 Cor. 12:9). (There were four in our family at the time.)

The organization and discipline you employ for your devotional time may even transfer into physical order in your home. Our children's bedrooms have become more orderly as we have established discipline in our spiritual lives. But most important, family devotional times help children develop a love for the Scriptures. Our children cherish the Bible as an often-used Book. They are familiar with the order of books in the Bible, and they are developing observational skills—finding repeated words and recognizing parallel Scriptures.

Proverbs 24:3–4 tells us, "By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures." We rejoice in how our family benefits from the daily "treasures" we find in our devotions together. And as we anticipate our children's growth into adulthood, we know that they will dwell secure as they continue to build on the firm foundation we have constructed through the Word of God.

Notes
1. Dr. James Dobson, What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1975), p. 158.
2. Edith Schaeffer, What is a Family? (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1975), pp. 18,24.
3. "Our Human Body" (Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest, 1962), p. 112.

Donna Maclean is a freelance writer and homemaker. She lives with her husband, Bill, and their children in Federal Way, Washington.