The Family Altar

In my Friday morning Bible Study we are reading a book called "The Secrets of the Secret Place" by Bob Sorge. The most recent chapter I read talked about the "Family Altar" or a time for parents to sit down with their children daily and teach them about God's word. While I think the term "Family Altar" is cheesy, I think he makes a good point that we as parents ought to be teaching even our very young children how to spend time with God daily, through the Bible and prayer.

So this morning Eliana and I picked up Egermeier's Bible Story Book (which was a baby gift from some friends of ours from Iowa) and started reading. I am sure that, as in my own daily time with the Lord, consistency is going to be my biggest struggle. But what better way to teach her how to work through inconsistency and failure, than to demonstrate it myself? To pick myself up each time I fall and show her how to brush herself off and keep going?

Our time this morning wasn't long, it wasn't "deep", and it wasn't over her head. It consisted of reading a short story from the book (2 pages?) and then talking about it. I started at the beginning, so we talked about creation. There are questions in the back of the book for discussion, but she didn't have the attention span or patience for it this morning, so I didn't push it. When she started giving me silly answers to things I know she knows (Who created the earth? Um... Goliath the rabbit!!) I decided we were done. Perhaps we'll talk about it throughout the day. I don't know. But I do know that I got to spend time with my daughter this morning, snuggling and reading, and sharing with her about the God that I love. And that is pretty much priceless.