“When You Rise Up”: Faith in the Mornings— Children’s Personal Devotions Part I of III

by Donna | May 4, 2011

“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7

Over the past nearly year and a half of this blog, I have talked about how we developed morning routines for our children different times. (Go to PP 365 at blogpost and click on one of the “contents” links—schedules, chores, charts, etc. for more help in the “morning routine.” The morning routine will change your life! )

Once our children were old enough (ages three or four) to change out of their pj’s; tuck their pj’s under their pillow; put dirty clothes in the hamper; “make” their bed (i.e. lie in it completely covered up from head to toe and wiggle out of the bed while trying to leave the covers/sheets intact then smooth it all and fluff the pillows!); brush their teeth; and put their books (that they “read” in the mornings while waiting to be gotten up) away, we incorporated “personal devotions.”

For the little kids, this meant setting the timer for five minutes while “reading” a picture Bible/story Bible. I say “reading” because most of our kids were late readers rather than early readers, so they simply “studied” the pictures of these Bibles, often reciting the stories from memory or making up the story all over again aloud or in their heads. As the children grew, their “personal devotions” grew with them.

Just like the morning family devotions, we always kept the personal devotions short enough to actually do. (I have learned the hard way that if something is too difficult or lengthy for the time slot that it is put into, it will seldom stick.) Since we homeschool our kids, they usually have “Bible class” in which they complete Bible curriculum; read certain assigned discipleship type books; and/or read Bible with Mom during school, so the personal devotions were what each child wanted or needed through the years (as they matured in their walk with the Lord)—with some input/direction from Mom and Dad as needed.

Thus, these personal devotions could be as simple as a chapter a day from Psalms or a prayer journal/Bible scribing time that they themselves chose to do that maybe took thirty or forty-five minutes. In a couple of days, I will give some ideas for kids’ morning personal devotions for various age groups.

Thanks for joining us as we seek to teach faith and character “when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up”!