Teaching Your Child to Connect with God: Praying, Reading, and Cultivating a Relationship with the Heavenly Father

As a Christian mom, one of your most daunting responsibilities can be helping your young child understand who God is. Helping a child cultivate a relationship with someone he can't see might feel impossible at first. After all, many adults find this concept challenging. How do we begin to teach our kids about God when they are still young? How do we help them start to understand even as babies? 
 
It is possible. One way your child will begin to learn is by watching you. Kids are observant—she'll pay attention to you; she'll listen and watch, but, most importantly, she will copy. What is mama doing? That's what she will do.

How to Help Your Child Understand Who God Is 
A mother's job consists of more than meeting her child's basic needs. A mother should be her child's first and best teacher. And one of her teaching assignments is helping her child develop a relationship with the Lord.
 
So, how do you start? Several good resources offer Christian parenting advice. While it's helpful to seek wise counsel from others, the best wisdom comes from God Himself. Spend time in prayer. Ask Him for wisdom, guidance, and strength to help you cultivate your child's heart. Be teachable. Make sure to spend time with Him because it's impossible to care for and disciple others properly if you are starved of spiritual nutrients.
 
Let's look at three things you can do throughout each day to introduce your baby to God and to help her develop a relationship with Him.

1. Talk about God
It's never too early to talk to your child about God. 
 
You can start by teaching your child that God is our creator. Tell your child that God created him and that no one else is just like him. God picked his eye color, hair color, height, and singing ability… everything about him. As you take a walk or visit a park or zoo, tell your child how God created the sun, the flowers, the animals. Look at the sky at night and tell your child how God created all the stars, the moon, and the planets. 
 
Teach your child about God's love and God's grace. Teach her that God loves her unconditionally. As she gets older, you can introduce the concept of grace. It's important that she knows that God may not like something she did but that He will always love her.

2. Teach God's Word 
Babies take in information constantly. That's how they learn to talk and express themselves. Read the Word to him, and he will build faith. How? Because "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).
 
Many parents like to use a kids' Bible when teaching about God. A kids' Bible provides short and engaging stories to capture and keep your child's attention. You can talk about the pictures, characters, and concepts. You can ask your toddler child questions about the story: Why do you think he did that? What do you think God had to say about it? This is a great way to introduce simple truths about God.
 
Of course, you can use an adult Bible as well. Reciting or reading scripture to your kids is an excellent practice because they soak up more than we often realize. Kids have great memories.
 
God breathes out scripture. It's good for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17). What better way to help them understand God than by teaching them His Word? Setting that solid foundation for him while he is young will help prepare his heart and steady his mind as he grows.

3.  Pray with Your Child
Prayer can be confusing for young kids because they can have difficulty understanding that you can talk to someone you can't see. Your child needs to see you pray. She needs to hear you talk to God, thank Him at mealtimes, and say goodnight prayers. These little practices make a difference.
 
Praying with your child also teaches him a sense of reverence for the Father. He begins to understand that "God" is someone he should respect because mama respects Him and that He's someone to trust because mama trusts Him.
 
While it's great to have specific prayer times throughout the day, such as at meals or before bed, kids need to know that prayer is more than a ritual. Prayer is not a task to mark off the list; it's a beautiful privilege to use to build a connection with the Lord.
 
One way to avoid ritualized prayers is to find ways to turn your kid's attention to Him. Is the sunrise pretty? Pause with your child, and say a little 'thank you prayer for the pretty sunrise. Did your little one fall and get a scraped knee? Pray for God to heal it and make it feel better soon. Find little ways to integrate God into your child's world throughout the day. God is all around her, and we need to show her how to notice Him.   
 

Be Involved with a Community of Believers
God created us for community. The above steps are important in teaching our kids about God, but being in a community is essential for us – and for them – as we grow in our relationship with God. The Lord always intended for us to grow together—His whole design for discipleship was rooted in family.
 
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17)
 
Our kids will be sharpened by what we do to help them grow and what other believers can do to help them prosper. They are immersed in the Word, prayer, worship, and a family of believers in church.
 
Being a part of a local church can provide you with friends and community as well as help keep you. As a mother, having the right people surrounding you is one of the greatest gifts you can receive. Your child might also find his little community of friends at church. Having faith-based friendships is so special, and being involved in a church with other children can genuinely help your child flourish as a believer, even at a very young age.
 
 
Enjoy the Simplicity 
One of the sweetest things about having children is watching them fall in love with God. While we have a responsibility to teach our children and raise them in the faith, it's important that we don't get so overwhelmed and concerned that they aren't learning enough or fast enough that we forget to enjoy the process.
 
Falling in love is a process. It will take time for a child to understand who God is and why she should accept His gift of salvation, but we must remember that, while we can teach her, God does the work in her heart. We plant the seeds, but He gives the growth.
 
Start planting now. Plant while your baby is still in a highchair. Plant while he's learning his first words. Plant now so that his world is saturated in the presence of God, and then enjoy the harvest. Enjoy watching your little one discover Him.


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