You know if we’re going to impact our kids for Christ,
we not only need to share spiritual things with them, look for spiritual opportunities to step in and minister to them, to answer their questions,
but we need to create opportunities to see how they think, how they perceive things.
Now you might think this is pretty bad, but I thought it was great.
One of the neatest things I ever did with my kids to understand how they looked at life was this this
(now maybe you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing this):
we would go to a shopping center, especially around Christmas or when it was real busy
and often there would be a little wall around the center part,
and we would sit on the wall or sit on the chair or something and I would pose certain questions to my kids.
And I’d only do one or two of them at a time with me.
And I say something like this, “I want you to tell me, who is the happiest person that you see.”
And then I would say, “Why do you say that?” and I’d would see what my children perceive as happiness and why.
Another question I’d ask, “Who’s the saddest person you see here?” And they would describe it to me and I’d say,
“Well, why do you say they’re sad? Why do you think they are sad?” And I’d learn so much about my kids. Another question was,
“Who’s the funniest person you see here?” And maybe you’d watch for five minutes before they’d say, “That person, daddy.”
“Why do you think they’re funny?”
And then would ask questions like, “Who is the nicest-dressed person you see?” You say, “Why would you ask a question like that?”
Because I learned what, to my children, they thought was really cool, what they thought was in, what they thought was nice.
And then I’d say, “Who’s the worst-dressed person here?” Oh, it wouldn’t take them long to do that one, especially kids.
Or “Who is the funniest-dressed person? Who’s the weirdest-dressed person?”
You say, “Why would you do that?”
Very simple. I learned from my kids what was funny, what was weird, what was sad, what was happy, what was good-dressed, poor-dressed, etc. etc.
I learned all these things while at the same time having fun with my kids and not having to walk through store after store with my wife shopping.
But I spent it with the kids and almost always, when we’d go as a family, I would go with the children
and do something special with them at a shopping center.
What I’m trying to say is take time to be with them and you will never regret it.
Because when you’re with them, your values, your beliefs will rub off on them.
You will impact them for Jesus Christ.