We have chosen to raise our children to look at
situations as blessings from God. Even what seems like a bad situation can be
turned into a great lesson or an amazing opportunity for God’s love to shine. I think this helps a child to develop a faith of their own. It
is important to point out the amazing ways that God is working in their lives.
Be sure to be watching for little faith builders as they can be easily missed. I define Faith builders as situations where God takes the time to show a youngster that
He cares even about their smallest needs and most of their wants. Here is an example of a faith builder that our family cherishes from a few years back.
Our church was having a community Easter Egg Hunt a few years back. Our family volunteered to help stuff candy into eggs. (eight thousand eggs) Imagine tables overflowing with candy and boxes of empty eggs to be filled. Things were going fine. Lots of volunteers stuffing eggs, good fellowship, and big smiles. However, it seemed that every five minutes or so our 7 year old daughter would ask me for a piece of candy. The response was always “no,” but that didn’t stop her from asking again and again. We are almost finished with our task when she finds a butterscotch candy. She is now begging for this piece of candy. The answer was still “no.” She begins to cry and starts to have a “melt down.” I stop her and remind her that God asks her to honor her parents by listening to them; when she honors her parents she is honoring God; when she makes the choice to honor God, He will bless her. I tell her she needs to listen to me now and trust that God will bless her in the future. (I secretly begin praying immediately that she would find an egg with a butterscotch in it at the hunt.) She calms down, listens, composes herself and we finish the evening. Life continues. Three days later we are at a scouting event. At this event there is a guessing game, you know the kind: there’s a jar filled to the brim with something and all the kids write their guesses on a piece of paper. The person who guesses the closest number gets to keep the jar and whatever is in it. Well, our 7 year old won the guessing contest. She won an entire jar of, you guessed it, butterscotch candy. She won 64 pieces of butterscotch candy. I believe that God gave her 64 pieces of butterscotch candy to build her faith and show her that He loves her. Wow, that He would care enough about her to bless her so!
As we go through this week, let's look for the faith builders God is giving us. I would love to hear about your experiences, please feel free to share them. Have fun watching Him work!
No comments:
Post a Comment