PURSUING THE HEART OF GOD

"These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads."
Deuteronomy 6: 6-8

There are many occasions, as the shepherd of my children, I have the privilege of being humbled by one of my lamb's pure hearts and desire to seek hard after the heart of God. A few nights ago, during our bedtime routine of bible reading to the kids, I decided to go back to Genesis 1 and read that familiar passage to them.

Our 7 year old, Ethan, stops me several times before I get 1/2 way through Genesis 1 with great comments and questions. Then he says, "so.....if God made the world perfect & it was all good until Eve and Adam ate the apple in the garden, then there wasn't a hell before then? So, I, in all my righteousness (and it is past bedtime....) say, "yes, honey that is true..." and he says, "then how did Satan get in the garden to tempt them to eat the apple?" And I look up from my bible, ready to be righteous again and tell him exactly what the answer is....and I say, "um....honey, (humbled) I don't know, but that is a great question and now mommy needs to let you go to bed so that I can go study and try to find an answer to your question."

I was privileged to witness the faith of my son stretching and searching for absolute truth - pursuing the heart of God.

The next day he says to me, "mom-can we study the persecuted (not quite so well pronounced - too precious) church at school? And I said, "what? (pleasantly surprised again) "yeah, mom we are learning about it a little in sunday school, can we learn about it at home, too?" Needless to say, thanks to the faith of my son, I, too, have been pursuing the heart of God this week. For all you homeschooling mom's out there, I found a great website for kids through 'Voice of the Martyrs' called 'Kids of Courage' http://www.kidsofcourage.com that is a great resource for the persecuted church - our new unit study for school!