LISA UPDIKE | GUEST

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy…” Well, that’s how the song goes anyway. Although I’m not quite sure that summer is all that easy for a mom with kids wanting to go to the pool, have a friend over, visit the park, and build forts in the woods, I do realize that summer is a more flexible time of the year. The long, unscheduled days present opportunities to engage in fun activities, making special memories as a family. That’s what we love about summer, isn’t it? Although my kids are grown, I know that I treasure our picture albums full of smiling, sun kissed faces squinting into the sun next to carefully constructed sand castles. Summertime “easy livin’” also presents us with numerous opportunities to engage our children with the gospel, and that is even more precious than a well-crafted memory album!

Memorize Scripture Together

Because summer offers a reprieve from the rigors of schoolwork, it is an excellent season to start a Bible verse memory program for your whole family! Choose a verse or passage to learn. Introduce it to the family during dinner, discussing what it means and how it applies to life. As a family, choose an award. Perhaps this could be a trip to the ice-cream parlor, an outing to the lake, or a night by the fire-pit toasting marshmallows for s’mores. Anything can work as long as everyone agrees. Then start memorizing, just a few words at a time, adding to them daily. Have the kids make posters with your family verse, and tape them up on the fridge, in the bathroom, and on your doors. Say it together in the car, in the morning, before bed, or at random times during the day. Once you’ve all learned it, enjoy your reward! You could even make a goal to memorize several passages and have a great big end of summer celebration!

Discipleship in the Garden

Discipleship moments abound in the summer. Consider the never-ending yardwork! Planting your vegetable and flower gardens, weeding, cutting the grass, and harvesting are all opportunities for gospel conversations. Read the opening chapters of Genesis with your kids and discuss the application we find in our own lives even thousands of years later. Adam and Eve’s first jobs were to care for the garden. They were to have dominion over the earth. Like them, we care for the small plots of land given to us. Sadly, with the entrance of sin our gardens were doomed to have weeds. Still, just as in the very beginning, each plant yields seed according to their own kind. When we plant a sunflower seed, we won’t get a marigold in its place! And as you clip flowers to arrange in a vase, or harvest juicy, red tomatoes, talk to the children about sowing and reaping. Remind them how important it is to tend to the garden of their hearts! What kind of “seeds” are they planting and what kind of “fruit” can they expect to grow in their lives?

Rejoice in all God has Made

Many of us travel in the summer giving us yet another occasion for discipleship. Yes, even logging hours in your minivan can yield moments to share about the Lord! When my children were little, and we were racking up the travel miles, gazing at the scenery as we drove past,  I loved declaring to them from the passenger seat, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein!” (Psalm 24:1). Seeing new places and new people caused me to delight in the creativity of the Lord. I wanted my children to learn to do the same. When one of my daughters asked to see the sunrise at the ocean, we got up extra early, made our way to the beach, sitting at the edge of the dunes and read Psalm 139 as the sun peeked over the edge of the water. It was a profound moment for both of us.  Vacations were times for exploration. We talked about each little sea creature discovered at the beach, or the beauty of the rolling mountains outside the cabin door, or the diversity of people in the cities when we visited museums, all the time pointing out our God’s workmanship and giving Him the glory!

Of course, no season is easier or harder when it comes to the discipleship of our children. There will always be both opportunities and obstacles. Let us make the most of one and battle against the other. The key isn’t found in having many clever ideas and cute ways to tie the gospel to experiences; rather, the key is Christ himself. As He is central in your heart and mind, He will be central in your parenting. As His word fills your mind, His word will spill out in your conversations with your precious little ones.  Fill your mind with the goodness of the Lord and the gospel will come alive in your everyday play…summertime or winter time, whether the “livin’ is easy” or not!

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash