Tag Archives: God

‘Finding Dory’: 4 incredible lessons for children AND parents

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‘Finding Dory’: 4 incredible lessons for children AND parents

Kids once learned lessons about life through books. That’s still the case for many children, but for the rest of them, movies have helped fill the gap.

That can be scary thought when you consider what Hollywood is putting in theaters, but for families who watched Finding Dory – which set an opening-weekend box office record for an animated movie – it’s a good thing.

The Disney/Pixar flick is full of positive life lessons for both children and adults, as I discovered when I took my 8-year-old son to it on opening night. As we drove home, he and I discussed what we could take away from a film that, yes, was both entertaining and hilarious but that also had a great message.

Here are four lessons for families: Continue reading →

‘Dad, I’m bored.’ (Here’s 3 things to tell your kids.)

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‘Dad, I’m bored.’ (Here’s 3 things to tell your kids.) Adam and Even didn’t have children prior to sin entering the world, but I sometimes wonder what it would have been like.

Would Cain and Abel have played well together, all day long, without fussing? Would they have eaten their food – even the Brussels sprouts and spinach — without complaining?

Then there’s this one: Would they ever have told their mom and dad: “We’re bored”? And would it have bugged Adam and Even as much as it bothers me when my kids say that?

I look at my kids’ toys – the ones in the corner, the other ones by the bed, and then the toys in the basement – and I think to myself, “How can you be bored?!”

But then I realize that boredom isn’t limited to my kids or even your kids. Adults, too, get bored, even if we don’t realize it. The average American watches more than five hours of TV a day [1] and checks their social media accounts 17 times a day [2]. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans read their Bible only four times a year [3]. In other words, we’re bored with God. And we want to be entertained.

It’s been suggested that boredom is a modern invention, and I tend to agree. Think about it: Our ancestors grew and preserved their own food, sewed and washed their own clothes, and built and repaired their own houses. They had very little time to be bored, and they didn’t have modern technology to “fill” the void.

I don’t know how often boredom is a sin, but I’m quite certain it’s not God’s original intent. After all, do you really think we’ll be bored in heaven?

So on those rare occasions that my kids say they’re bored, I try to make a few points: Continue reading →

‘Dad, are there 2 Jesuses?’ (how to teach your child about the Trinity)

| | Posted in Parents of toddlers, Parents of young children | Tagged , , , ,

‘Dad, are there 2 Jesuses?’ (how to teach your child about the Trinity)The look on my 4-year-old son Williams’s face was one of confusion and bewilderment – and I knew he was preparing to toss me a theological curve ball.

We had been reading a passage out of the New Testament and discussing a simple-yet-profound concept that is taught repeatedly throughout Scripture: God sending His Son to the Earth in the form of a tiny baby.

My blue-eyed, curly-haired son knows the story about Mary, Joseph and the Christ child by heart. He even can tell you all about Easter. But on this night He was getting hung up on the roles of God the Father and God the Son – and the differences.

Finally, William spit it out: “So, Dad, are there two Jesuses?”

For much of his short life, William has been the king of crazy questions. When learned that his yet-to-be-born baby brother would not immediately be able to crawl or walk, he asked: “So, he won’t have legs?” When I told him that Noah was 600 when he built the ark, William asked, innocently, “Is that older than grandpa?”

But as much as I wanted to toss his theological question into the “kids-say-the-darndest-things” category, I couldn’t. That’s because for weeks and weeks, I had been teaching him that Jesus is God, but on this night I was telling him that Jesus was being sent by God. Let’s be honest: Unless you’ve been in church culture your entire life, that concept certainly sounds confusing.

So is Jesus God, or was He sent by God? Or to put it into the 4-year-old vernacular, are there two Jesuses?

The Bible is full of hard-to-understand concepts – for preschoolers and adults. For example, it teaches that Jesus was 100 percent God and 100 percent man. Here’s another one: Jesus, as a child, simultaneously knew nothing and everything. Huh?

You see, parents aren’t all that much different from my 4-year-old son. We, too, are struggling to grasp some of Scripture’s most incredible concepts. We want God to be explained to us, in detail, and preferably in the next five minutes by PowerPoint. But if God could be so easily explained, He wouldn’t be God, would He?

The good news, though, is that Christian parents don’t have to be theologians in order to teach their children about the Trinity – or any other hard-to-understand concepts. All we have to do is teach what the Bible teaches, and go no further.

In fact, as I have learned, children are far more accepting of difficult-to-understand truths than are adults. That night, I told my 4-year-old son the same thing I would tell a 44-year-old co-worker, or any other adult. Here’s what I said: Continue reading →

3 ways to teach your kids about Easter, death and the cross

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3 ways to teach your kids about Easter, death and the cross

My 4-year-old daughter Maggie has always been a bit studious for her age. She knew colors when she was 2, was reading the entire alphabet when she was 3, and by the time she turned 4, could read a digital clock.

So I was a bit surprised when my wife told me toward the end of last year that Maggie had failed a holiday pop quiz. The question from my wife was the same one that Charlie Brown shouted to all of his friends: What’s Christmas all about?

Maggie’s answer: “presents.”

I’m sure she said it in an oh-so-sweet voice, and I bet she even had an oh-so-precious smile on her face, but she also was oh-so-wrong. Christmas, my wife told her, is about Jesus—even if presents can be part of innocent holiday fun. By the end of the day Maggie had watched a cartoon about baby Jesus and had been read a book about baby Jesus, and it’s safe to say she went to bed that night knowing that Christmas wasn’t all about dolls, dollhouses and pretty pink necklaces.

Of course, it’s easy to teach children about Christmas, with its spotlight on a sweet tiny baby surrounded by animals and shepherds on a clear, starry night. It’s such a “sterile” and “clean” story that even non-Christians are attracted to its power.

But what do we do about Easter? Instead of a baby, we have a bruised and bloodied man. Instead of shepherds in worshipful awe, we have mocking, hate-filled onlookers. Instead of a stable, we have nails, a crown of thorns and a cross. And instead of a story about life, we apparently have a story about, well, death. How do we teach our children that?
 Continue reading →

10 life-changing words to tell your kids every day

| | Posted in Parents of infants, Parents of toddlers, Parents of young children | Tagged , ,

10 life-changing words to tell your kids every dayMy 7-year-old son is like a lot of boys his age—energetic, jovial and somewhat loud.

He also has this peculiarity that is prominent among his peers: He pretends he doesn’t like to be praised.

“Great job, son!” I’ll tell him—to which he responds with a shrug of embarrassment or a stare of indifference.

But I know my words impact him—greatly.

One time he and I were having a candid father-son talk when I—unwisely—told him that the Bible says I should love his mom more than I love him. Oh, sure, it was a super-dumb thing to say, even though it had a biblical basis (Ephesians 5) and was factually true. But his 7-year-old heart wasn’t ready to process that, and he went to his room and sobbed. I nearly cried, too.

Sociologists have conducted dozens of studies demonstrating the power of words, but Scripture—more than 2,000 years ago—beat social science to the punch.

“Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body,” Proverbs 16:24 tells us.

If we were to analyze the thousands of words we say each day to our children, would they be mostly negative (“I can’t believe you did that!”) or positive (“let’s clean that up together”)? Our words, both good and bad, shape our children in the same manner the talented potter molds the unformed clay.

My wife and I have become intentional in recent months about using more positive words around our children, and we’ve seen our home become an even happier one. The results, though, aren’t always seen overnight. Just as honeycomb and other healthy foods don’t lead to instant good health, sometimes our words have to be sprinkled on our children each day and every week, until months later we see fruit—whether that is obeying better, treating their siblings and friends better, or even making better grades.
 Continue reading →