Nowadays everyone has a busy life. Parents have a busy life at work, business and church. Children are busy going to school and participating in extracurricular activities that keep them occupied during our busy schedules. And when we are at home we get busy with the housework, food prep, responding to messages, chores and the list goes on.
Yep, Life can get really busy. Sometimes we end up so tired we don’t even get meaningful opportunities to help develop our children’s relationship with God. Here in This post Busy Life? I share 5 ways to develop your children’s relationship with God in spite of having a busy life.
As a child, I recall having several chores, some enjoyable, most not so much fun. However, each of those chores I did then, has helped me today. Back then they were part of the schedule of a not-so-busy life of my parents. As I raise my children, these life lessons contribute to making my family happy. This is because I still use all of those skills I learned for doing various tasks today.
Be Practical 5 ways to Develop Your Children’s Relationship with God
Imagine if we apply the same emphasis on developing our children’s relationship with God as we do with other aspects of their development. Is it a chore, not exactly, but more of a duty. The consistent principles we teach can be applied in the same daily manner as those things that are part of our busy life. Sometimes it is hard, other times we need a touch of creativity along the way. But it is certainly not impossible.
As a family, we use these 5 ways to help develop the heritage that God has given to my husband and I. Being ministers, working regular jobs, and raising children is no easy task.
Hats off to parents! You are doing a great job! Be encouraged.
And as life gets busy, be sure that you get busy teaching your children about Jesus in spite of how busy life gets. Be very intentional about it. In sharing these 5 practical ways with you, I also share how they can be beneficial to your child’s relationship with God.
Five simple tips you can use to put practical Christian living into practice as a family, even if you have a very busy lifestyle.
1. Have Family Devotion
I am sure you’ve heard this one over and over again. And it is easier said than done right. Yep! It happens to the best of us. From the womb, we started reading the Bible to our firstborn Ephraim. I must confess, however, that it certainly was a lot more difficult to do this consistently with our second child. Nevertheless, one thing that we ensure to do on a consistent basis in spite of our busy life is to have nightly family devotions. No matter what the agenda is for the week, family devotions is on that agenda.
After an evening bath, everyone gathers on the bed. There is excitement and anticipation for family devotion. Dive in with a bible story, especially when daddy does the reading, singing, and sometimes shouting in praise. Sometimes short, other times long. But always a part of our evening and I think we are a busy bunch.
So why is this way so important for your child and family to develop Their Relationship With God
- It allows you to spend quality time together as a family and in fellowship with God
- It establishes your spiritual values in your children’s life that will be a guide to them as they grow
- You teach your children the Christian Heritage
- Your children learn the importance of following Jesus and developing a personal relationship with Him no matter what.
Here is a great book we have fallen in love with that we use for our devotional time.
Though the stories are very short, using the pictures and flaps in your own way you can extend the lesson to include more of what God’s word says.
Another wonderful book for devotions is All About Prayer by Lois Rock and Anna C Leplar. This is great for teaching about prayer and we will discuss that a bit later in this post. I am sure you have some favorites too, I would love to hear some others that you have found useful. Do share your top two books in the comments below. Of course the Bible is number one.
Vital Life Lesson For Children From Epic Bible Heroes!
David – A Man After God’s Heart
Queen Esther – For Such A Time As This
2. Worship With Your Children to Develop Their Relationship With God
We love to sing and dance, so it has become one of our favorite habits. We put the television on YouTube for at least 20 minutes a day in the evening. Then we just dance to our favorite gospel songs and deliberately sing, shout, and worship Jesus. It’s a lot of fun worshipping God this way.
Our children have their list of favorites, the Rizers, Proclaim, Lifetree Kids, and Yancy among their top ten. While many children may not be so free to express themselves this way in public, the home is a good place to start teaching your children to worship God. And if you are too busy to give a dedicated period of time, play the songs while doing your chores, or prep and dance as you work. You’d be surprised how quickly you would be done.
Worshipping God in this way together can help your children to:
- See your love for God and your worship outside of church and other formal settings
- Know that they can worship God any day, anywhere, and at any time
- Allows them to express themselves to God through their own unique way of praise and worship.
Do you have a favorite song or list of songs you love to listen to? Have you noticed your children loving any particular children’s worship songs? Just put it on and start there. Don’t try to be too formal, it would come naturally cause we were created for this.
3. Shape Their Talents and Natural Desires Around Serving God
At three years many children start to imagine what they can be and want to be or do when they grow up. I have given it a name called natural desires. Our son Ephraim loves drumming, and singing and says he wants to be a fireman, a teacher, and a pastor when he grows up.
We never stop him from expressing these desires though, we are aware that some may be influenced by factors around him. What we do instead is speak to him as to how he will be able to serve God in these areas and minister to others through these careers. Sometimes the discussion get technical cause you may agree that children that age begin to ask a lot of questions. We simply try to answer the best way we can. During your busy day, the car is a great place for these conversations or if your travel the bus or train.
Taking Action That Helps Develop That Relationship With God
Due to his keen interest, we attempt to get him some of the things that help these desires become a learning experience for him. Like a fire truck, or a drum set, this is a special one and you can read more about it RIGHT HERE. Furthermore, you’ll be able to nurture those desires in such a way that they become service oriented. Service to who, God of course. You can get them busy occasionally by being involved in simple tasks that will lead them to serve God in areas of their natural desire.
In this way you can:
- Encourage your children to see themselves as being valuable and adding value to the lives of others
- Help children learn early that they can be independent thinkers who are resilient
- Help them to learn and grow to recognize that life isn’t just about themselves.
- Teach them the biblical principle of service as you help develop their giftings
4. Teach them God’s Word
Of the 5 ways I have shared in this post, this is one of my favorite things to do. It is also one of the things I learned to do effectively during my time with one of the best children’s ministry organizations,
Child Evangelism Fellowship International. Why it’s important to teach your children God’s word? Simple because He says that we should in so many ways can you help me with some…
- Proverbs 22:6 English Standard Version. Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
- Psalm 119: 9 – 11 English Standard Version. How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. 10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! 11. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
- 2 Timothy 3:16-17 New International Version. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, 17. So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Verse References – Bible Gateway.com
Here is a simple Bible Verse Craft that I have shared that you can try with your family.
Also, grab the printable activity it’s Free
Joshua 24:15 As For Me and My House Printable Craft
You can get really creative teaching God’s word to your children even with a busy life. Play games in the car on the way to your destination, and sing bible verse songs during bath time, along with other opportune times. I love to take the verse in the bible and make simple songs that our children love to sing to their own tune and guess what? It stays with them. Even in our busyness, we have managed to stick up verses all around our home which we read as often as possible, and talk about what they mean.
There are also many amazing bible verse songs online that you can use to enhance your child’s learning experience. Don’t wait till they get old, start now you surely won’t regret what you do.
5. Teach your children to pray for themselves and for others even during busy times in life.
Our son has a very long prayer list, which is great. He prays for his friends at school, the drummer, the keyboardist, his aunties, uncles, and cousins and the list goes on. He loves to pray for other people and we know it’s a matter of the heart for him. We have found this book All About Prayer a wonderful guide to help a child learn what prayer is all about, how they can pray, give thanks to God, and pray for others. There are times of organized prayer and there are busy times when prayer happens everywhere. When life gets busy there may be even more to pray about.
As you do this you would find that your child learns to
- Intercede for himself and others
- Develop a love for prayer along with confidence and trust in God
- Experience God’s power as God answers prayers that were prayed
We have seen how people run away from prayer because some think it is not necessary, others find it boring and some may think that it does not need to be habitual. Be encouraged to make it a habit even with a busy life from early with your child. One of those habits you want your child or children to continue for a very long time.
Life Lessons For Kids From Epic Bible Hero David
A Man After God’s Own Heart!
In Conclusion
As you apply these five ways to develop your children’s relationship with God to your busy life and family. Know that this foundation you take the time and effort to lay will be strong and endure. Your child or children will be enriched as they spend time learning about Jesus, worshipping Him, and building that personal relationship with Him that He desires everyone to have. I often tell my children the most important thing in this life is to get to know the one who created life itself. God Almighty!
As always thank you so much for reading and relating to this post. Feel free to share some of the things you do to develop your child’s relationship with Christ. Also let m know how you manage those busy life moments in the comments below.
Be sure to stay safe and be blessed.
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I really love your blog Yana..it has really inspired me and encouraged me even more to do all what i can to ensure my children are raised in the fear of the Lord. Keep inspiring others as you do!! Also one of the programs that my children listen to is Bible adventure. It teaches kids alot about God in relation to pray, trust and faith. One of the things my 4 year old and 5 year old enjoys is the fact that they can sign the scripture verse and some lovely songs to praise God. We have fun video taping and encouraging them to learn the verses. We also teach them to pray and ask God for forgiveness when they do something that is wrong which teaches them to always talk with their friend Jesus as we like to say :). I pray that everyone reading your blog will be blessed by your ministry
Excellent Cindy keep it up. It’s the best legacy you can give to your children
Amen! I will continue