My daughter has a new favorite game, it's called doing dishes. A coffee cup can hardly be rinsed in our house without her demanding to be a part. This all started when I had a huge stack of dishes that needed to be done a few weeks ago and Ivy wanted my full attention. Rather than leave my dishes until later (what got me into the predicament in the first place) I pulled a step stool over to the sink and we began washing dishes together. Oh my goodness did she have fun splashing and screaming. Apparently no one ever told her doing dishes was a chore, she just enjoyed it.
Too often we look at our devotion and prayer times as a daily chore rather than a moment for enjoyment. I'm fully convinced God wants our time with him to be more than a duty, he wants us to enjoy it as well. Likewise Ivy has no concept of prayer and devotion except what I teach her. She gets the biggest smile when we use our prayer journal (a family photo album) to pray and sometimes demands to pray over and over again. No one told her praying or reading Bible stories was a chore, to her it's a delight and I hope it always remains that way.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 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. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Deut. 6:4-9
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Awesome insights! I do think that God wants us to serve Him because we delight in Him instead of doing it out of duty. Great idea about the prayer journal, I'm definitely going to have to do this with my little ones :)!
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