Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Bible study and kids

Bible in the Bathroom

By

I call it Bible in the Bathroom.

When I heard a well-known Christian speaker mention that she writes a verse or two on a three-by-five card and tapes it over the bathroom sink, I thought I’d give it a try. I admit, I was desperate. Every one of my previous attempts to introduce regular Bible study into our family’s routine had flopped. Badly.

At dinnertime I’d tried reading a verse or two with a brief commentary geared toward children. The kids pronounced it boring after a week.

I’d experimented with various Advent and Lent devotional booklets, even some that included games and other gimmicks, but their eyes glazed over by the third day.

I’d tried scripture straight-up — an Old Testament story or one of the more interesting parables — but the boys preferred to discuss Minecraft over their macaroni and cheese.

My husband Brad wasn’t keen on the idea of Bible in the Bathroom. He suggested I might want to peel the scotch-taped index card off the tile and stash it in the cabinet when we had guests over for dinner.

“I’m not taking it down just because we have guests,” I announced, all high and mighty, standing in the living room with my hands on my hips.

“But think how you would have reacted just a few years ago if you’d spotted a Bible verse taped over someone’s bathroom sink,” he reminded me.

True. I would have deemed the person a creepy, freaky Bible banger, remembered suddenly that I had a “dentist appointment” and made a beeline for the front door.

Honestly, I’m no good at evangelizing. I’m about as likely to inquire if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior as I am to ask what size pants you wear. Still, I decided to try Bible in the Bathroom for one reason: I want to introduce my kids to the Bible in a way that didn’t feel like a burden or punishment to them.

I didn’t talk about the verses with the boys, except to suggest they might want to read the card while they brushed their teeth. I didn’t expound on the scripture or explain why I chose the particular verses. I simply taped a card to the tile and changed it out once a week. At the very least, I figured, it gave me something to ponder while I flossed my teeth and plucked my eyebrows.

One morning a few weeks into the project, my son Noah turned to me, toothbrush in hand, as I gathered towels for the wash. “You know,” he said, leaning to spit into the sink, “sometimes I think about these Bible verses when I’m at school. Sometimes they help me worry less.” A couple of weeks later, Rowan began to remind me when it was time to change out the verse.

Clearly a softer, subtler approach to Bible study is the best option for my kids right now. As much as I want to dig into the parables and discuss deep questions with them over dinner, they aren’t ready for or interested in that. They may grow into it…they may not. Right now, though, I’m glad that a few words from the Bible occasionally offer them a little light to see by as they walk through their days.

What about you? Do you have any tips for doing Bible study with kids?

*This post ran last Saturday in the Lincoln Journal Star. 

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday {Wednesday}: It’s Not Supposed to Be Easy

By

“Mommy,” Rowan asked, all wide eyes and furrowed brow, “If God asked you to kill me, would you do it?”

Rowan was about five, and we were reading his children’s Bible for the first time, the Bible I’d hoped would skirt around some of the more difficult, unsavory issues. As we finished the story of Abraham and Isaac, I realized that wasn’t going to be the case.

“Well,” I answered, “I’m pretty sure I don’t have the kind of trust Abraham had. So no, I wouldn’t. I would tell God ‘no.’” I reassured Rowan that God wouldn’t actually have let Abraham go through with it, but was merely testing Abraham’s faith.

I gave Rowan the answer he wanted to hear. But I also gave the answer I knew was true. The fact is, even in matters far less grave than the sacrifice of a child, I often don’t obey God’s will. I look for the easy way out instead.

I know I’m inclined to explain away or talk around some of the more challenging stories in the Bible, in order to make them less challenging, less disturbing.

I tell myself the story of Abraham and Isaac doesn’t apply to me. I needn’t worry about having to make a choice like that, because that was the Old Testament God. Now that we have Jesus, I reassure myself, God doesn’t ask us to make choices like that.

Even with some of the New Testament stories – like the parable of the rich young man, for example – I tell myself Jesus isn’t being literal, but is merely offering an example as a metaphorical illustration.

But I’m kidding myself. In re-writing and re-interpreting some of the tougher stories in the Bible, I am letting myself off the hook. I’m trying to skate by, to get off easy. I want to be a “good Christian,” sure, but I don’t actually want to suffer or sacrifice for it. I’ll take Christian-lite please, with as few repercussions on my personal comfort and happiness as possible.

But here’s the deal, here’s what the Gospels actually say, straight-up, if we don’t sugar-coat the message:

The Christian life isn’t supposed to be easy. And if it is, we are doing it wrong.

I know, I know, I don’t want to hear it either. But it’s true. God asks us to make sacrifices, big sacrifices, sacrifices that will have a lasting impact on our personal lives. And while those sacrifices certainly won’t require us to tie our kids to a stack of wood in the backyard, they will require trust, faith, challenge and even discomfort.

The road is not supposed to be easy. We can’t walk it half-way or even three-fourths and call it good. We can’t withhold even a little bit of ourselves. God doesn’t say, “Follow me when you’re ready,” or “Follow me when it’s convenient for you,” or “Follow me when it’s easy.”

God says, “Follow me.”

Questions for Reflection:
What are you withholding from God? Do you ever try to talk around the more challenging Bible stories in the hopes of giving yourself an out? What would obeying God’s command, “Follow me” look like for you right now?

: :

Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word. If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information.

Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

<a border=”0″ href=”https://michellederusha.com/” target=”_blank”> <img src=”http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab239/mderusha/HearItUseItImage-1.jpg”/></a>



When You’re Afraid You’re Raising Spiritual Barbarians

By

You may recall that we don’t have a good track record with family devotions. I’ve tried a number of them, and so far we’ve failed to make it a regular habit. At one point last year, fed up with my kids’ persistent mutiny against devotions, I actually gave away my own copy of Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling for Kids in a random blog drawing.

When Advent rolled around this year I decided to simplify the whole process by going straight to the source. I decided we would read some of the Gospel of Luke as our nightly dinnertime devotion.

“Mommy! Read more!” Rowan begged one night at the table, after I’d finished the story of Zachariah. “Are you serious?” I asked, closing my Bible and setting it next to my plate.  “Yeah, yeah, I’m serious, read more,” he said. “It’s catchy, don’t you think?”

“Catchy” is certainly one way to think of the Bible.

Two weeks into Advent Noah asked if we could continue the dinnertime Bible reading even after Christmas. Again, I asked if he was joking. Turns out, he wasn’t, and so that’s the plan. I’ve wanted to try The Message translation for a while now, so I picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble last weekend, and this week we started from the beginning, with the light and darkness, the heavens and earth.

For the past three years, whenever I read about many of my fellow bloggers and their families, I saw a Norman Rockwell picture of perfection – the family gathered around the dinner table, heads bowed, Scripture in hands. Then I’d look at my kids, falling off their chairs, silverware clattering to the floor, giggling through grace, mutinying against every attempt to bring God to the table, and I’d inevitably assume I was doing something wrong. “Why? Why is this so hard? Why can’t my kids be polite and Godly?” I wondered. “What am I doing wrong that they are such spiritual barbarians?”

The answer, of course, is nothing. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I simply needed to persevere until it clicked; to keep trying different options until one fit. And to wait. Patiently.

Maybe it’s simply that they are older now, a little better able to concentrate and understand. Or maybe I should have cut right to the chase, bypassing the devotional books and going straight to the Bible. Or perhaps this, too, will turn out to be a fad. Maybe three weeks from now they’ll mutiny again.

I’m not telling you this story so I can pat myself on the back, or so you’ll look at our family the way I looked at others. Instead, I want you to see what’s real, so that you’ll know that it’s all okay, in every less-than-pretty variation. I want you know that boys tumble from chairs, and silverware clatters to the floor, and someone burps during the prayer, and thanks is given more often for Super Mario Bros. than for the soup.

Grace isn’t always pretty, at least at our house. But through it all, God is present. Even, or perhaps especially, when we fall off our chairs.

 What about you? Do you read the Bible or evening devotions at dinnertime with your family? Do you ever feel like you’re raising spiritual barbarians?

With Ann Voskamp’s Walk with Him Wednesday series {because we are trying, again, to make a habit out of this…}

 

Click here to get posts in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

A Different Advent: Reading the Book of Luke

By

{Today I’m re-visiting a f post I wrote in 2010 for a series called “A Different Advent.” What’s cool is that two years later, we are still practicing  many of the ideas we experimented with as a family then — including the tradition I write about here today: reading through the Gospel of Luke at dinnertime.}

I laughed out loud a few weeks ago when my friend Dan recounted the first time he read the story of Jesus’ birth on Christmas Day. When his wife asked him to read the “Christmas Story,” as she referred to it, Dan was shocked to see a Bible placed in his lap. He’d assumed she’d meant ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

I’m with Dan – this will be the first time in my 40 years that I have read the story of Jesus’ birth on Christmas Day…or even leading up to Christmas Day (aside from in church, of course).

Nearly every evening at suppertime this month we’ve read a few lines about the birth of Jesus in Luke or Matthew. It’s been a revelation for me to realize just how little I know about the details of that story. Just this week, for instance, I was surprised to read that Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus escaped to Egypt for two years to avoid King Herod, who vowed to kill baby Jesus.

I know I’ve read that detail before, but the magnitude of it never stuck with me – that just days after birthing her first child, Mary had to travel nearly 200 miles to a foreign land. Can you imagine bumping along on the back of a donkey just days after giving birth? Can you imagine raising your newborn in a foreign country where you didn’t know a soul? Can you imagine the fear, the terror of having to dash from Bethlehem in the middle of the night because a crazed king was bent on murdering your child?

That’s the beauty of reading the Bible just a few lines at a time – you can soak in the details of the story.

Often when I do my morning Bible study, I feel compelled to rush through the text, to squeeze in as much reading as my limited time will allow. It seems I simply want to “get through” the Bible in order to check it off my daily to-do list.

But because we are following an Advent devotional book, our evening readings are much more concise. We read just a handful of lines, maybe a verse or two, and then ask questions and talk about the scene for a few minutes. I’m not exactly sure what this approach is having on my kids, but for me, at least, it’s allowed me to think about and remember the details of this age-old story.

I’m eager to read the “Christmas Story” in Luke on December 25 this year. After piecing the narrative together line by line this last month, I wonder how the story will read as a whole. I wonder how the kids will react to it.

I’m keeping my expectations low – after all, these are the kids who talked about dead racoons as part of our Advent devotions last week. But I do hope that we can breathe the true Christmas Story into our celebration on December 25 and be amazed, even if only for a moment or two, that he came to be with us.

Do you have any Advent traditions you follow from year to year? Have you tried anything new this year?