Painting in Progress by Wendy Custer
When I was in fourth grade, my teacher noticed my artistic ability. She called it out and encouraged me to continue. I am sure there were other things that led me in that direction as well, but it is that particular moment that I remember defining my future calling as an artist.
Adults have an incredible opportunity to encourage the little ones in our lives. Parents, grandparents, teachers, aunts and uncles, neighbors, babysitters – these are all the obvious influencers in a child’s life, but every one of us have an opportunity to notice and encourage children. Every smile, positive comment, and shining example plants a seed that germinates beneath the surface.
Every encouragement we offer children is important, but the most important encouragement we can offer is the encouragement to strengthen themselves in the Lord! It is this legacy that will serve our children regardless of what worldly direction they follow.
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”Proverbs 22:6
When Moses gave God’s commandments to the Israelites at the foot of the mountain, he reminded them of the need to teach their children about following the Lord. Their children had not seen and experienced God the way they had – but they could pass down the stories of God’s love, protection, and provision – and His ways.
“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.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. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.”Deuteronomy 11:18-21
Moses was teaching the people to encourage themselves in the Lord and how to teach their children to encourage themselves in the Lord. This was the inheritance they wanted to pass down to the next generation – trusting God, relying on God, knowing God! If they could learn to call on Him and to depend on Him, Scripture says their days would be many!
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”Romans 10:14
We often rely on other people to teach our children. We might expect that the preaching should come from the Pastor or the Sunday School teacher, and it should, but every believer should be speaking the word – with words and with our lives. When we share the stories of how God is at work in our lives, we are training others – children and adults – to see Him at work in their lives as well.
“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”1 Timothy 3:14-15
As Paul reminds Timothy to continue in the ways he was taught by his mother and grandmother, we are reminded that our words and teaching have lasting significance in the life of a child – and that our investment in their faith will ripple out to affect generations to come as they continue in what they have learned!