I made a profession of faith as a young child. I think I was four. I don’t remember much about this experience; I think I sat on a step outside a classroom with a Sunday school teacher. I also don’t remember any response of my family. I remember much more clearly getting baptized at age six, especially being questioned by the pastor. “Does baptism save you? Can you get to heaven by being baptized?” I remember clearly my feelings of indignation that he thought I would believe those terrible errors. I knew that salvation was a gift of God and not based on anything I had done.

I can remember feeling quite a bit uneasy around this time when my brother (two years older) told me he wanted me to be saved. Even though I had already made a profession of faith, he was worried, and his worry got me a little worried. I can remember feeling a little fearful at this time because I couldn’t remember “the event” clearly. But remembering the conversation about salvation that I had with the pastor helped me.

I began to doubt my salvation off and on throughout junior high and  high school. The biggest problem was that I couldn’t remember what I had said that day. One night I was bothered enough to humble myself and wake up my mom. I am a very private person, and this was the first my mom knew about any concerns I might have. Nevertheless, she did not remind me of my salvation experience. She simply explained that there were several reasons a person might doubt his salvation. This was a very helpful conversation, because up until this point, the only reasons I had heard at church or youth group or youth camp was that you doubted your salvation if you weren’t really saved.

The first reason a person might doubt his salvation is that he’s not really saved. The doubting is the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It’s important to take doubts seriously, because it is a serious thing for a person to convince himself that he is saved when he is not. As person draws near to God, the Holy Spirit is capable of helping this person understand truth. Avoiding God may cause these doubts to go away. I nodded as I listened. The possibility of thinking I was saved when I wasn’t was the reason I was taking these doubts seriously.

Then Mom explained that a saved person could also doubt his salvation because he lacked knowledge. A person’s worry about the safety of his money in a bank will not change the reality of security. The Galatian Christians were an example of this problem. They were saved, but they were confused about their salvation. The apostle John wrote to Christians who were facing persecution and doubting their salvation. His stated purpose in writing first John was to give the believers information that would help them evaluate their relationship with God and receive assurance of their salvation. Today, genuine believers who have not been discipled commonly doubt their salvation. The solution is to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The more a true believer knows about God and his plan for salvation, the more confident he grows in his own salvation.

Another reason a saved person might doubt his salvation, is if he is struggling with sin, or not dealing with sin appropriately. My mom showed me I Peter 1:5-9.

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

After mom talked about all these possibilities, she told me that I needed to examine myself, pray, and determine where I fit. She didn’t ask me for a response or evaluation on the spot, but simply left me and went back to sleep. I wasn’t sure that I fit in any category, but the idea that my doubts alone were not automatically indicative of a lack of salvation was comforting. I went to sleep easily that night.

A final piece of knowledge came in college when a pastor commented that people who are trusting in Christ find great assurance in what Christ has promised and accomplished. People who are trusting in a prayer or event find more assurance remembering the event of their salvation than the word of God. This was a helpful distinction for me. As long as I tried to analyze what I had said, or what I was doing for Christ, my focus was on me. But I discovered that when I meditated on Christ and his promises, I was comforted and strengthened in my faith. My growing confidence in God’s ability to keep what I committed to him dispelled any lingering doubts, and soon thereafter, my doubts disappeared. II Timothy 1:11 became a very special verse to me. “For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”

Like anyone, our own experiences shape how we approach our children and their salvation. In particular I do know that my mom’s approach had a tremendous influence on me. It demonstrated that a doubted childhood conversion does not have to be addressed by “Of course you were saved, I remember….” I am grateful for her wisdom.

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• By far the most motivating thing for David has been downloading the Bible for MP3 and giving him the means of listening to it in his room. He is very much an auditory learner. I used to think that he was uninterested in the Bible, but when he could listen to the Bible, I got a better sense of his interest level.
• The most motivating thing for Bethel has been to learn how to read. She expressed several times her desire to learn to read the Bible, and from the time she could read simple sentences, she read her Bible at night. (but then, she’s a word person like her mama).
• We have deliberately connected learning to read with getting a nice Bible. Laurel has a new Bible with her name embossed on it, but she can’t have it until she can read it.
• Teaching them to use their Bible. I grew up loving the center margin cross references in my Bible. I’ve showed the children how to find an original prophecy, or similar verses, or the harmony of the gospels, by using those cross references. I spent one day helping them find places in the maps at the back of their Bibles.
• Teaching them to use Bible tools. I remember how excited I was to learn how to use Strong’s Concordance. I’ve helped David learn to use biblegateway.com in the same way. This is exciting.
• Highlighters. I gave all the kids highlighters, and told them they could highlight verses that they wanted to remember. We talked about not highlighting too much, and not drawing pictures, but as a whole, the idea of highlighting has been a positive one.
• Teaching them verses that correspond to their interests. David loves bird verses. Bethel likes horse verses. There are funny verses and helpful verses. David loves verses about King David. Every once in awhile, I tell my children. “I have a verse for you.” and then I read it to them, or give them a paper with the reference on it. When David expressed an interest in the tabernacle, I bought several references that would help him understand it.
• Teaching them verses that help them. I showed Bethel Psalms about going to sleep. I discovered later that she highlighted those verses and learned them well. This is true in my own life. I get excited when I see the relevance of God’s Word in my life, when I see that God HAS given me everything I need for life and godliness. I’m learning that for my children, they don’t always get the connection without me specifically teaching it. I helped David label Psalms awhile back– when I am discouraged, when others are being mean, when I can’t sleep, etc. I could do this more.
• I’ve deliberately looked for scripture songs set to music. When the Scripture songs are relevant to our lives, they have been of great value. Many times, our children have started singing, “Do everything without complaining” as they struggled to keep their rooms clean. Music has been a good way to remember verses that we use often.
• Allowing them to stay up later than normal if they are reading or listening to the Bible. This is highly motivating to my night owl, but not as motivating for my child who goes to sleep within two minutes of laying head on pillow. Since Laurel can’t read, she can look at Bible Story books.
• AWANA. Our children have been highly motivated by the AWANA curriculum, not just to learn the verses, but also to complete assignments given by the teachers. (David’s AWANA teacher has been giving him short assignments designed to get students in the Word. David takes these assignments very seriously.) I’ve been thankful for the AWANA program.
• For Christmas, our two older children received Christian non-fiction. David received a book on birds, and Bethel received God’s Names. I let them read these books for school and suggested that they highlight the verses they liked in their Bible. It didn’t surprise me that they both have been very happy doing this. They do have other reading books for school, and I presented it as letting them do something different, if they wanted. I suspected they would choose the new books. When they’re done, we’ll go back to the old reading books.
• When I was a teen, we earned spending money for camp by memorizing verses on the tongue (or some other topic). It was something special, but I remember these verses years later. This was a very unusual occasion where we were rewarded for Scripture memory. I haven’t done this with our children, but I like the idea of rewards for special occasions.
• Sword drills at Sunday school are motivating. We’ve done modified sword drills (with topics, and not references) at home, but both are fun for children, and helpful as they learn how to find verses by themselves. (Learning the books of the Bible is also a good skill to learn)

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Last night I realized that I haven’t had the kids write out in their words their testimony. I might do this, and see what we get. While I do not want them to invent a memory, I would desire that they remember what they have done. Talking and writing about their profession is of great value toward this end. The more they remember, the better able they will be to evaluate their own profession in years to come.

If you’re wondering about young children and their capacity for salvation, I commend to you Spurgeon’s book on this topic. Please read it, if you have not done so. It will encourage and challenge you, far more than most child-rearing books in print today.

Random thoughts:

I believe that salvation is simple enough for a child to understand. I believe that, while it is appropriate to evaluate a child’s understanding of salvation, Scripture makes refusing a child’s testimony to be a very serious thing. Adults seem to require far greater maturity of an adult convert than a child convert. Children are developing mentally and physically, making their spiritual growth look different than an adult convert. Cultivating a desire for spiritual things is important (just because plants naturally grow doesn’t mean than we shouldn’t tend them carefully!) I need to trust the Holy Spirit with the salvation of my children. It is also not a good thing to carry guilt for a long period of time. How a child perceives himself is of importance (more on this later).

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I’ve been thinking lately that I need to be slow to speak for another reason: I’m interfering with my children’s ability to solve their problems.

Typically, I hear a scream from a child, and my reaction is to come investigate immediately. After all, the screamer is not solving a problem correctly, and there is undoubtedly an instigator who has also done something wrong. They need correction! My suspicions are confirmed if I wait a second, because then I hear “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Now I know something happened, and I want to know what it was.

I am noticing that, if I can restrain myself, often (though not always), the screamer and teaser resolve their problem without my even coming in the room. I’m wondering whether delaying my response will help the screamer to deal with the problem on her own. Maybe she’ll use her scream to effect change instead of to alert mom for help, but I do see that as progress. We have further to go, but I’m interested  to think that being quick to hear and slow to speak has value in this context as well. For now, I’ve been ignoring the fight, and waiting to see how they resolve the issue. Isn’t that what I am working towards?Similar Posts:

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I’ve been talking with my children lately about the relationship between trust and obedience. These are not long conversations. In fact, they are short, but seem to be coming frequently enough that I hope I’m not nagging. I’m realizing how often a failure to obey in one child is a result of a lack of trust. I see evidence in a lack of trust in how they obey, too. Innocent asking for clarification is sometimes a child evaluating for himself whether the command was appropriate. The other day, David was bothered that I allowed the sisters to make cookies without him. I had my reasons, but to explain them would have been inappropriate. The next morning, when I asked him to make the second batch, I asked him if he now understood one reason I wasn’t worried about equality. He got it. I think now, after discussing the relationship between trust and obedience, I simply use the word trust, and it carries the meaning I want. Will you trust me? instead of Will you obey me? I won’t always use this phrase, but right now it’s a good reminder for us.

Then comes introspection. Should I be asking for that trust? In any case, I need to be aware in how I hold the trust that is certainly and naturally given. Am I using my children as servants simply for my own comfort and ease? (e.g., Honey, please stop you game and get me my phone as I sit here on the couch checking Facebook.) Am I faithful to be satisfied with the responsibilities I have given, or do I add jobs on as they work harder? Am I capricious in my consequences? Am I teaching them that obedience is not simply trusting a parent, because parents fail, in spite of our best intentions? Obedience is ultimately trusting God. (A faithful teacher years ago made that same observation regarding submitting to a husband.) Do I have a track record of having reasons for saying no, or is no my default answer? Do I answer too quickly when a request is made, and need to change my answer when I’ve thought more about it?

It follows to ask myself, how do I trust God? Many of the obedience challenges I’ve had comprise a multitude of choices over a period of time. I’m happy to obey at the beginning of a new situation or challenge, but as time goes on, it can sometimes be harder to trust and obey.  I should think on his for awhile, in the quiet of the morning that God gave me.

I am working on teaching my children to trust and obey, but I’m also praying that God would help me to be a trustworthy parent, to obey him faithfully.Similar Posts:

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He was sleepy and grouchy. So he cuddled up in my lap and we rocked together for a bit, even though he’s really too big for that these days. This was a good morning for a two-sided discussion, because this is a really important spiritual lesson: How should we respond when we suspect someone is not telling the truth, but we have no evidence to the contrary? How should we respond when someone has done something thoughtless or rude?

I asked the girls a few questions and gathered that his report of the facts seemed generally accurate. The first thing I have been doing in these situations is acknowledge that the girls should have done something else. Right up front. Love embraces truth, and it is not truth to pretend something that is obviously false. I have found that if I skip the step of acknowledging the injustice, I can’t make headway in the discussion of his responsibilities. The reason this is so important is normal immaturity and lack of knowledge: children think that if you don’t deal with the siblings sins at that moment, you don’t see it, or don’t think it’s as bad as what they’re getting corrected for. I think they must learn to trust their parents in this regard, but I also believe that this trust has to be based on knowledge of certain facts: parents can deal with one person at a time. Parents deal with things later, sometimes. Children may not always know when a sibling has been corrected. I can’t expect my children to know these things if I haven’t told them.

I asked David if he had the ability to overlook the offense. He nodded. I’m really discussing this idea a lot these days, so I added more information: Overlooking an offense doesn’t mean you say “That was a wonderful thing my sister did!” I suggested he listen to I Corinthians 13 a bunch of times, and told him to listen for when Paul tells us that love rejoices in the truth, but also hopes all things. The idea is that renaming something wonderful if it’s not the truth is not love. On the other hand, if there are two possibilities, then love believes the best one.

I gave some obvious examples. Is it more loving to believe your sister accidentally bumped you, or bumped you because she was trying to be mean? David recognized that assuming good motives was more loving. Especially when a sibling denies any ill intent, love chooses to accept this explanation.’

I brought him back to the original offense.  I asked him to think of why Bethel and Laurel might have sat in front of his door, and I led him down the road of trying to see through his sisters’ eyes. We then talked about what he could say and do instead of getting angry. Love might indeed say, “I don’t want to play when you wake me up in this way.” And love does recognize that his sisters may not have been telling the truth when they said they weren’t in the room, but love can also accept their words and trust God with the truth. Love might see the desire of his sisters’ heart and suggest a better time for playing together.

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• I asked them if they knew what the most important commands were in the Bible. (I figured they wouldn’t know this)
• I asked them if they could find a place where someone wanted to know why we needed to be born again. (Bethel and David both went to John 3– I want them to feel successful at using their Bibles, so I asked them a challenge I knew they could get.)
• I asked them if they could find a place where the Bible tells us something to think about. (Bethel went to Phil 4:8 and then Psalm 1. I sent David to Psalm 119 and he found a few verses in that chapter.)
• We also read Psalm 103 together, and I asked them if they could find some verses that might help a child who was afraid that God was always mad at him.

Sometimes as I listen in church or read my Bible, I think “Oh, that would be a good verse for my children.” On Sunday I had a whole bunch, all at once, so I had to write them down. On Monday, I really wanted them to get the most important command– love the Lord your God with all heart soul and mind– because of its importance to salvation. For a child who is pretty good at being good– helpful and kind, obedient, listens in Sunday school, really, every teacher’s dream child– he needs to know that without salvation, he is breaking God’s most important command. I want to communicate that being good might assuage our guilty feelings, but it isn’t salvation. I also wanted to balance the command, with an understanding of God’s love and mercy. That’s why we read Psalm 103.

(Btw, I had a good followup conversation in private. I really want salvation conversations to be serious and pleasant, but not oppressive. We are on the same team with our children!)

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We talked a little bit about teamwork, something that helps me to be more patient. When I can change my attitude into one of helping– kindness!– I am loving my children, and it’s probably not a surprise that I’m more patient in the process.

I need to remember more that LOVE is patient. That helps me understand an important motive for patience, as well as a goal to reach for. If I look at all of I Corinthians 13, I can easily see ways that I can love my children and naturally be more patient. Love is kind? Love is not selfish? Love sees things in the best light? I think about how often I assume the worst and snap at my children, only to find out after the fact that I was falsely accusing them. I’ve been increasingly aware of my tendency to determine motives: You were being prideful, You wanted Laurel to feel bad, You didn’t care about such and such, and so on. I’ve been trying to rephrase these accusations as questions: It looks like you were being prideful. Could it be that you wanted your sister to feel bad? What I’ve discovered is that when I attempt to be more loving by asking these questions, I’m more patient, too.

One of the verses that we talk about with our children is James 1:19 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;

Today I was realizing that these three commands were given together for a reason. If I am slow to speak (asking more questions) and quick to hear (paying attention to what they say), I will be slow to anger (more patient).

I’ve been helping my children not to be quick to anger. Typically, it has taken awhile for me to realize that I need the lesson too. I tell my children, Asking questions and listening to the answer is a good way to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath all at once.

Good questions must be learned just like patience. Slowly, with a lot of practice and failures! But we progress nonetheless. Praise God for this!

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We’ve been discussing salvation as an act of obedience.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “LORD, who has believed our report?” So then faithcomes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:16-17)

I want to be able to hug my unsaved children and love them, to praise their obedience and accomplishments. I don’t want to create the impression that my love is dependent on whether they obey God or me, especially as they get older. There’s a tension between calling our children to repentance (something we should be doing) and manipulating their desire to please parents in order to exact a conversion. Because of this tension, we are still praying for wisdom in this area, and we don’t feel like we have all the answers.

When our children were little, we wanted to be careful when presenting the gospel to our children. We wanted to see the Holy Spirit working: evidence of a developing conscience, awareness of sin, desire for salvation, and understanding of the gospel. We didn’t talk about “obey God and repent,”  probably because as parents of young children, we could force our children to obey in most things. We didn’t want salvation to be one of those things. As they have gotten older, and it has been clear that they aren’t making decisions simply to please mom and dad, we have talked about salvation as obedience.

Jesus isn’t simply inviting us to come on a journey, and then he’ll give us instructions to obey. He tells us to follow him. This is a step of obedience, and it has been helpful for me to see it this way, whether it is sharing the gospel with my children, or with others.Similar Posts:

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However, I realized recently that I’ve not been careful regarding the red couch.

Now, growing up, my mom let my brother and me play with the couch cushions. We had a lot of fun playing on them. In Lee’s house, he wasn’t allowed to play with couch cushions growing up. It doesn’t surprise you then to know that it wouldn’t bother me at all for the children to slide across the living room floor on a couch cushion, and that Lee isn’t keen on that idea. As our children have been getting more boisterous with couch, I finally realized that Lee’s concern was justified all along, and I was not right to ignore his wishes regardless. Furthermore, because I wasn’t stopping the children during the daytime, I was encouraging them to ignore and disrespect their dad. That’s not good, is it?

So I’ve been working on this. I have told them that I wasn’t doing right by letting them play on and with the couch, and asked their forgiveness for setting a bad example. Maybe I need to simply bring down the beanbag that they’re allowed to play on.

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