Having a daily devotions time with our young children is beginning a habit we hope will last a life time.

The purpose of having a personal daily devotional time (or Quiet Time) with God is to draw close to him, in the sense of visiting with your friend every day. It is a time to hear from Him fresh every day so that you can have His Words and His ways close to you as you go through your day. Of course, God is with us all day and all we need to do is call out and He will answer, but committing a small portion of our day to focusing on our friendship with Jesus will build a stronger friendship.

This is what we need to pass onto our children.

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I started having this daily time with my children, one on one, when they are about 5 years old. Until then we would regularly read Bible stories throughout the day but Devotion Time is different. We continue to read Bible stories, as that is what this age group understand, but our discussions, and prayer life became more personal and focused on the individual child.

Little kids understand God far more than we often give them credit for. After all, they understand God; unseen and yet loving – that is a very abstract kind of thought. It is at this stage that we start introducing the concept of a personal relationship, of daily time spent reading and talking to God. (It is for this reason that I really don’t like putting an age on this – when your little one is developing this heart for God is a good time to begin).

A Daily Quiet Time for Kids

Our early “Quiet Times” goes like this

• We read a Bible Story (Sometimes praying first asking God to open our ears/heart)
• The child gives me an oral narration (retelling of what they heard) which leads into discussion
• We discuss what personal lesson they can learn from that story.
• We write or draw in their “God Book” (aka journal)
• We close in prayer, always asking the Holy Spirit for help with this lesson for the day.

It is a good time to make mention that our children need to know that though we call these sections of the Bible, “Bible Stories” they are true and we can believe all that the Bible says as true.

As they grew older some of our kids liked a Kids Devotional book.  We would read the reference Scripture first and often discuss that in the same way we used to discuss a Bible story passage.  If there was time we would move onto reading the devotional story which we would also discuss.

You may prefer though to continue to read straight out of the Bible. Choose a theme, such as Beatitudes, or Parables, or Proverbs etc, and read a short section each day, continue to discuss, apply and pray about the Word of God.

When the child is able to we add a journal to our Quiet Time.  In this they would either draw or write – depending on their ability and interest.  They can draw or summarise to help them remember what we talked about, they can draw or write a prayer or prayer list.  As they grew older they also would write out memory verses and some would illustrate.

Remember it is about a Relationship with Jesus

Don’t forget your goals or reasons behind this time; it is to help your child build a relationship with Jesus.  If your child is not interested in a relationship with Jesus then adding a ‘Quiet Time’ in your day for them is just going through the motions.  You can continue to teach them about God and His love in your Family Devotion time or your Bible Study time – but leave Personal Quiet time to when they want to know more about Jesus and spend time with him.

I want my children to learn a few things from our devotional time:

• the habit of daily setting aside time to spend with God
• to turn to the Bible for wisdom and purpose
• to learn to pray
• but most of all, to learn what God is like, who He is and to respond to Him from their own heart.

We would continue in this way until the child is a confident independent reader and in a place where they want, from their own heart, to pursue God. Then we transfer these habits to doing it on their own.

Little children so often delight in God, they see Him simply as their God. As parents,with far more baggage in our life, we have to be careful not to complicate things and not to have expectations on our children. It is likely, if we listen to their hearts, that we will learn something of God for ourselves. So to this end I encourage you, to keep things simple, keep your eye on the goals and discover a joy in God yourself to pass onto your little ones.

Further Reading:

How to Teach our Children to Hide God’s Word in their Heart:   We need to expose God’s Word, the Bible to our children, if we want them to value it enough to hide it in their heart.

How you Can Help Your Child Have a Devotional Time:  The No.1 Thing Parents can do to help their kids have a devotional time is to have one themselves! The 2nd thing to do is to let them see you have your quiet time.