At lunch yesterday, my 8-year-old son noticed an ant on the flower arrangement. He watched it for a while, amused by the tiny creature's efforts to find a way out of the maze of leaves and petals. After a few minutes, he started directing the ant, "If you go down this stem, you can get to the edge of the vase..." Of course, the ant didn't listen. Finally giving up, my son commented, "The ant is lost in a forest of flowers."
I had noticed during this that I had a captive audience. All children were seated around the table, and all children had intently watched and listened to my son's interaction with the ant. This was my chance to grab a teaching moment before it slipped away.
"If we were the tiny ant," I started, "who would be like the person watching the ant?"
My children easily answered, "God."
Then I elaborated. "Our lives are like the ant on the flowers. We're trying to find our way somewhere, and maybe we'll find it, but maybe we won't. But God can see all the flowers, and He can see the right way to go. So if you were the ant, what would you do?"
After they answered, "Listen to God," I concluded by saying, "It's sad that many people don't want to listen to God." And that was it.
It doesn't take a long lecture. By grabbing the moments and weaving God and other deeper issues into everyday conversations, your child will grow in understanding with every passing day.
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