So, how was your first month trying to live more like Jesus? Were you able to find Bibles and Bible study plans that worked for you and your children? Did any of you work with your children on increasing their Bible comprehension or scripture memorization?
This is my daughter’s junior year in high school and she is being slammed academically. Even though she is home schooled, she is studying six or seven days a week (and long days at that). It would have been very easy for us to give Church, service work and Bible reading a rest this year. To her credit, I don’t think she would have let me had I tried. (I did force her to take a two month break from one volunteer commitment, partially to keep her healthy.)
She is still chugging along with her reading in Proverbs. Proverbs is a great book for older children and teens. Most of the proverbs in the book are short and easy to understand. More importantly, many of them cover the behaviors a Christian should be exhibiting in his life. Proverbs, the Gospels and James are all very readable books, with lots of practical advice. If your child or teen hasn’t started their reading yet, these are some of my favorite books to suggest for first attempts at independent Bible reading.
As for me? Well, let’s just say my scattered world means I can be a little scattered myself at times. I have to be in the Scriptures many days to write lessons or study for lessons. This experiment for me was about reading the Bible to read it, not to try and teach someone from what I read (although that does happen naturally sometimes). So there were a couple of days when I would catch myself thinking about pulling out my Bible to write and then as soon as I thought the word “Bible”, I would realize I had forgotten my reading that morning! For the most part though, I would say this month was a success in our house.
If you floundered a little more than we did, don’t be discouraged. As I mentioned, some sort of regular Bible study has been a habit in our house for years. This month was more about formalizing our time and making it more personal for us. If regular Bible study is new to you, you may struggle for awhile. Don’t give up! I promise you the benefits you and your children will get out of regular Bible study are worth the effort. If you or your children started a Bible reading plan and then stopped, pick a new plan or start the current one for today’s date. Don’t try and catch up two or three weeks of missed readings. You will catch those scriptures the next time through or at some other point in the future.
So what’s next? In my next post, I will give you tips on adding or improving you and your child’s prayer life to your studying of God’s Words. There are some really fun ways to enrich the prayer lives of you and your children. In the mean time, if you have found a great Bible, reading plan or technique that helped your family this month, please share it in a comment below. I would love to hear what worked for you and your children!