Try to hang with me...cause this story is twisty and turny and even though there is a big picture (being Brady receiving Jesus)...there is a lot more to it. I'll break it up into 3 main parts.
Part 1 of the bigger picture: It all started when our summer curriculum didn't come in for Discovery Street (for those that don't know I work for my church in the children's ministry). We needed something to do for a few weeks until our curriculum came in, and I've been thinking a lot lately about how to make the spiritual disciplines we so often talk about with the kids seem realistic and doable, so that's the route we decided to go. We all know that most 6 through 10 year olds don't read their bible or pray on their own...so we started talking through some very practical ways to help them. One of our practical ways to help kids with reading their bibles is to find some good age-appropriate devotional books. I decided I would go to Lifeway or Cedar Springs and look for some options before we did that particular lesson so I could show the kids some good examples.
Part 2 of the bigger picture: I have been meeting with a high school girl for about 3 months to try and help her through some tough times and we had our last meeting for the summer yesterday night. We met at Starbucks and chatted for a while and then walked over to Lifeway...turns out high school kids have a hard time reading and understanding the Bible too so I wanted to help her find a devotional book for her age that might help her. She was pretty stoked to have something that would help her start reading the Bible...so I kind of took that as a confirmation, if you will, that we were on the right track with the idea of devotional books for the kids. After she and I were done I went back to Lifeway to start my search.
There are so many different devotional books - even for "little boys"- that it's almost overwhelming...so I decided to grab one book for girls and one book for boys to try them out on my kids. I really wanted to test them out right away...but I knew I would have to wait because by the time I got home the kids would already be in bed.
Part 3 of the bigger picture: I got home around 9:30 and to my surprise, Denver and Brady were still awake, so I grabbed both of the books and showed them to the kids. They both were really excited and wanted to do the first devotional right away, so I sat down with Denver and Kris got in bed with Brady to read through his book with him. Here's where the cool part starts...after I got done with Denver I heard Brady talking with Kris so I walked into his bedroom. Kris had just started reading the devotional about Jesus wanting to be your best friend when Brady turned to Kris and said "Daddy, if I died tonight, I would go to hell because I'm not a Christian". What's interesting about this is that the devotional had nothing to do with heaven or hell. In fact, I don't think Kris or I have ever had a conversation where we told Brady he would go to hell because he wasn't a Christian. We had thought he was too young to understand any of that...and neither Kris nor I wanted our kids to receive Christ solely out of fear. But that opening statement by Brady allowed Kris and I to have a very cool conversation with him that eventually led to a very momentous occasion.
This has gotten long...so I'll finish up this story in part 3...where I'll share a little more about Brady receiving Christ and the bigger picture of it all.
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