FAMILYaltar
Besides work I spend most my time with my young children when they are not at school. My husband works night shift, thus I spend my wonderful evenings with my four children from 7:30pm to 9:30 pm. However on Fridays I attend Junior Adult Fellowship.
What is so great about spending time with my children? We love because God first love us and sent his one and only beloved Son Jesus Christ to be born as Word in flesh, humbly as man, to sacrifice his life to redeem the sinful. How could I be unfruitful in disappointing him? I want to carry this sacrificial love of Christ and nurture my children, the inheritance given by God, so that they will be a generation of piety towards God.
Every evening, we use half an hour taking turns to exercise praying, Bible reading, sharing, intercession and memorizing Bible verses. We also use other materials like Family Worship Handbook, spiritual books and so on.
That is how I accompany them through their childhood. I hope this disciplinary habit of learning God’s words and getting close to God would be an indelible spiritual memory and experience which would carry them through whatever circumstances. Wherever they will be, they will stay firm in the faith and power of the risen Lord Jesus.
Many a time I feel so weak and small in this great universe, but every time I look up to the vast sky I feel the greatness of God.
How would I stop knowing you, experiencing you, Lord? At a time like this, the Holy Spirit would renew my strength without fail, and I would start all over bringing my children to meet God each day. (How wonderful it is!)
Let the Truth Speak
in Their World
When they grow into adolescents, each child practices their own devotion. With the popular usage of smartphone, we now have a family chat group. We often use this group chat to ask biblical questions and as the head of the family, the father would use this opportunity to brainstorm with the children with scripture passages to help them think. We also discuss current affairs, social issues, God’s words, and pray together about the current issues, COVID pandemic, national election and the sick. Because of our Lord and the spiritual exercise as a family, our family is linked together and it is so great!
The Methodist Church in Malaysia launched “Issachar Watchmen Methodist Prayer” recently and our family participated in 2019 and also 2020. We adopted a 30-minute praying time on Thursday from 9:30pm -10:00pm. During this prayer time, we would pray for the world, for Malaysia, our communities, our church, family and our personal matters. We brought our children to link with God, hoping that the truth in them would speak to their world.
Dear parents, do you understand the thoughts of your children? Do you know their inner world? Do your children share with you their joy and grief, their anger and happiness, their hope and expectations of the future? Are they lost? Do you understand them? Or, as parents do you wish to give them, materialistic things and a luxurious living? Or you want them to have a brain full of knowledge? Or you hope they are prim and proper? …
Genesis 1: 27-28, says: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Therefore, our children born in the image of God are very precious.
Dear parents don’t let our children be devoured by the world. Help them to regain the glorious image of God in them to glorify God. Are you willing to spend time with them to understand them better and go deeper into their lives? Are you willing to lead them from young to know God, to learn the truth, to follow the Word of God, so that they can walk according to the Will of God when they grow up? This is what you can give them. Let’s start today!