Family Devotions

Family devotions are a discipline we have struggled with over the years. We have used many resources such as Word of Life Quiet time books, Keys for Kids, Our Daily Bread, Foundations Bible reading curriculum, and probably others throughout the years that I have just forgotten about. These are all great materials, but we have found that the more time spent in one of these pre-packaged resources, the more it can become a mundane chore to finish if we are not careful. As Christians, we all can be tempted to make Bible reading about what we are doing, what we can check off the list, or just another chore in our list of things to get done in a day. That’s the last thing we want to teach our kids when it comes to reading God’s Word! Reading Scripture is about knowing God, developing a personal relationship with Him, hearing from our Creator, and spending time with Him so that He do a work in our lives.

We recently re-vamped how we are discipling our kids in the area of Bible reading. We want them to open Scripture for themselves and read what God is actually saying, not just someone else’s interpretation of what a particular passage means or how it applies. We want our children to have some basic tools in their belt to read and understand God’s Word, figure out what it really means, and then apply what they just read to their lives.

Here’s how this works for us.

Every morning before the kids do anything else, they open up their Bibles and read the passage for the day. The passage is assigned by Wes the night before. Wes and I make sure to read that same passage that morning also, although we may add more to our daily reading than we ask them to read. The kids spend a minimum of twenty minutes in the Word each morning, reading the assigned passage and looking for certain things as they read.

This is where the goofiness of our family comes into play, even in our Bible reading time! We are looking for SPACEPETS as we read. Did you know that you can find SPACEPETS in the Bible? We do all the time!

This is an acronym that assists our children in their curiosity when it comes to Scripture. Here’s what is stands for:

S- Sins to confess
P- Promise to claim
A- Attitude to Change
C- Command to Obey
E- Example to Follow
P- Prayer to Pray
E- Error to Avoid
T- Truth to believe
S- Something to thank God for

For example, our Bible reading on Saturday was Colossians 3:5-8. It says:

 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.  But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

Col 3:5-8

Do you see any SPACEPETS in this text?

I see some. “Put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature….” These things are “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed…anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language…” This would be a Command to Obey. Also, if I am convicted while reading about my earthly nature and God allows me to see during my reading of His Word that I am really struggling with anger I would say that this is a Sin to Confess. I would then spend some time confessing this sin to God and asking Him for help. There are other SPACEPETS that you could find in this short text of Scripture. Do you see any?

The kids have learned to do this over the past few months and the growth in their own daily walk with the Lord has been such a grace to witness. Just the other day my son Colton was on the phone with one of his aunts. She was asking him what he was up to and he boldly said “I just was reading my Bible and founds my SPACEPETS for today.” She was bit confused, and he went on to explain to her what he looks for in his Bible and that day he had found a Command to Obey that day. It was super cool hearing him excited about what he was discovering in God’s Word and how he was applying it to his own life and sharing it with others.

Lastly, what we do each day after each of us have done our own personal time with the Lord is we all get together to share what we learned and what we found in God’s Word. This is usually in the evening after dinner. Many times, we all have focused on a different part of the same passage of Scripture. It’s neat to see what God causes to stick out to each of us. We then spend some time praying about our own SPACEPETS we found that day and asking for God’s help in applying what we have learned.

This method of Bible reading has been such a benefit to us and our family. The kids are always so excited to share their SPACEPETS and why that particular verse was important and stood out to them. There are times when as parents we realize that a verse has been misunderstood or misapplied, so this has also been a great method of discipleship with our kids. We are able to talk through those misunderstandings as a family and help them to correctly interpret and correctly apply Scripture.

Maybe you feel like you are in a rut with you family devotions. We highly recommend this simple method. It’s so simple, teaches discipline in Bible reading, helps each individual to engage with God’s Word in a personal way, and allows you as a family to do something so meaningful together- get into God’s Word!