A Simple but Significant Way to Point Our Children to God

One of my favorite things to do with our boys is play a little game of  “high and low.”   Perhaps you’re familiar with it.  

Whether it’s around the table during dinner or when they're all snuggled into their beds, each one of us takes a turn sharing our high and low moments of the day.   Some of my boys are eager to tell me about their day, and some of my boys tend to answer most questions with a one or two word answer, no matter how open-ended the question is.  So this game helps facilitate conversation among us, and move us past the basic “fine” and “good” answer. 

So first we ask, “What was your ‘high’ today?” This gives them the chance to share what made them happy or what brought them joy.

After everyone has an opportunity to share their highs, we ask, “What was your ‘low’ today?”  This gives them the opportunity to share what made them sad or where they struggled in their day.

At first our boys were resistant to talking about the “lows” because, well, who wants to recall the hard stuff, right?  But what I love about the “lows” is that it reminds our boys that our home is a place where we can be real with one another.  See, we don’t just ask the boys to share their lows.  We do it too.  We let them see the normalcy of the “hard stuff” in our own lives.  

The “lows” are also a great opportunity to ensure our kids that they don’t have to wear a mask in our presence.  It tells them that we don’t just want to know about how they’ve succeeded or only when they’ve felt happy.  We want to know about the areas in their life where they are struggling and where they have felt sadness ……. so we can pray and lead and love them through it.

Well, after several years of doing “highs and lows” with our boys, we realized the conversation just naturally led to one more question – the most important one of all, actually.  

“Where did you experience God today?”   

This question helps our kids do two things:

1.     Grow in awareness of God’s presence with them.

2.     Grow in reliance on His power in them.

This question opens the door to our most meaningful conversations as a family, and invites our kids to reflect on things like:  

Did you see the creativity of God in His creation today? 

Did you experience the love of God for you through someone’s kindness toward you?   

Did you do something courageous today because you knew God was with you? 

Did you experience God's peace in a stressful situation?

Did you sense the Holy Spirit nudge you to do the right thing when you were tempted to do wrong? 

Did you rely on the Holy Spirit’s power inside you?

Not only is this a fun way to point our children to God but I also never cease to be amazed at their answers and how their child-like (not child-ish but child-like!) faith inspires mine.  

All is grace,
Jeannie
www.jeanniecunnion.com