The Biblical Truths Your Kids Need to Know

It doesn't have to be perfect, right? I think especially as a mom, sometimes I go, I said I was going to start on January 1. I was going to go through the Bible in a year. And now I'm on day 12 and I'm already behind.

I guess I'll just give that up. No, start again tomorrow. Because if the goal is to know Christ and to love Him more and to align your heart and your life to look more like Him, then tomorrow is not too late to begin. What a great encouragement from Ruth Jo Simons. She's our guest today on Focus on the Family, here to help you and your family develop a solid faith foundation. Thanks for joining us today.

I'm John Fuller and your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly. John, it's so easy to lose sight of the big picture as we raise our kids. What are we trying to do? Parents face basically constant pressure to get their child involved in sports or church activities, school programs. I mean, Jean and I succeeded sometimes with Trent and Troy, but other times we just, they weren't interested.

So it didn't work. If you're a mom and dad, I'd encourage you to step back and ask yourself, what's my main focus when it comes to parenting and what should my focus be if I don't know? Scripture provides a clear job description for parents. It's to teach your kids about God and His will for their lives.

I mean, that's pretty straightforward. Talking about God's Word might happen in a structured setting. Jean loved that, the devotions every night at seven and go for 30 minutes. So we got five minutes of contemplation, 10 minutes of singing and then 10 minutes of Bible reading and then a Q&A time.

I mean, that was Jean. And for me, it was driving down the road going, man, look at that sunset. Look at what God's painted for us tonight, kind of in the moment. And I am looking forward to talking with our guests today about how to encourage you as a parent to build those foundations in your children. And Ruth Jo Simons is an author, artist and entrepreneur. And you might know her as the founder of Grace Laced, and she creates art rooted in scripture. Our conversation today is about a book that Ruth and her husband Troy wrote called Foundations 12 Biblical Truths to Shape a Family. And we've got copies of that here.

And all the details are in the episode notes. Ruth, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thanks so much for having me.

It's so good to have you. I'm excited because you're a mom of six boys. You're an expert.

Not an expert, but I have a lot of experience. Okay, for the listener and the viewer, what are the age ranges for your boys, the oldest to the youngest? My oldest is 19.

And then it goes to 17, 15, 13, 10 and 8. And I just did that. If Troy, your husband were here, would he be able to answer so concisely? He'd be better. He knows their birth dates.

I have to like look for it on my blog to find what day I blogged about their birth. That's great. I'm impressed with Troy.

He's good. All right, let's get into it. Let's address listeners who are thinking, you know, teaching the Bible isn't kind of in my wheelhouse. I'm not that kind of extrovert communicator, whatever it might be. And yet, how is this topic relevant for parents who don't see themselves as the big reader?

Yeah. You know, I think parents get overwhelmed easily because we immediately think that we have to create a perfect scenario in order to teach our children about God. We think about having to put our hymnals out, sing Amazing Grace, and everybody has to be well behaved. And the number one question I get all the time is, well, Ruth, what do we do if our kids are rolling around on the ground or they start getting in a fight or they start poking each other and they're not listening?

And I go, well, that's really kind of real life, right? And so teaching scripture and showing our kids the goodness of God isn't going to happen in a vacuum. And I think for so many of us, we thought that if we just take them to Sunday school, if we just take them to VBS, we'll accomplish the whole goal.

And then we can just live our normal lives at home. And we're finding that ultimately it doesn't work to just let somebody else take over that discipleship factor. We are called as parents to be the number one primary influencer, primary discipler of our children. And so we have to find a way to do that. Yeah. And I do, you know, VBS, our boys went to VBS, but see it as an augmentation of what you're doing, not the sole source, right?

And you can't just be once a week and once a year. It needs to be in our everyday, mundane daily lives. Yeah. Well, I was going to say for the listener, a good thing to remember is don't outsource the faith training of your children.

You know, you can seek experts, but you'd be the core person. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. I want to start, though, with even your faith foundation, the type of home you were raised in, because so many of us that weren't raised in a Christian home, you know, we can flounder a little bit and not really know what's the right thing to do. I mean, I didn't find the Lord until I was 22 or whatever the age might be. What's your experience growing up or not growing up in a Christian home?

Yeah. You know, my parents and I, we all came to genuine faith about the same time as I was entering high school. And so interestingly, my parents were baby Christians. They were young in the faith. They were learning all the things about what the gospel is, how to, you know, what church is supposed to be like, how it is to study the scriptures. And so they were trying to train us up in the same, at the same time that they were learning those things. So my parents did the best they knew how, but I think they leaned towards thinking that there was a way to read something and assume that that was discipleship in itself. And it sometimes got a little legalistic, Jim. I mean, honestly, it wasn't their intention, but it kind of became a sense of, well, you know, if you had a bad day, it might be because you didn't have your quiet time. And so that the idea of spending time with the Lord as a family or individually kind of became formulaic or ritualistic rather than relational. And I think that's where as an adult now, I feel really called to and burdened to help inspire parents to seek that relational aspect when we're parenting and discipling our kids, rather than fall back on thinking it has to be perfect or we have to do it in this exact time slot every single day.

And I want to dig into this a little bit because what you're touching on is so critically important. And we've done broadcasts with parents who had blown it and thinking of the Pepins and, you know, some great programs. And if you as a listener haven't heard that one, that's a good one. That was the daughter who at 17 was pregnant. And, you know, what that did to the family and the solutions that God provided for that family.

And it's a beautiful end story. But in that context, it's this idea of really training to behavioral outcomes rather than heart outcomes. And that's hard because I think we as believers, you know, especially for the parents, we know that living these things in a structured way, these spiritual truths in a structured way, produce good behavior.

I mean, makes you a good citizen, all these wonderful things. But when you're parenting, you've got to allow your kids to stumble. I mean, it's just part of letting them grow.

We grow in the valleys, not in the mountaintops. And, you know, I so appreciate what you're saying there. Well, I think we forget that the example that the Apostle Paul sets when he writes each of the apostles is that he literally says, let me remind the reader who God is, who we are in Christ. And then the actions, the put on and put offs come later, sometimes by chapter four. And sometimes as parents, we go straight to the put on put offs, like, don't lie, you know, do these things, don't do these things. Which are all good things.

Which are all good things. But we don't lay a solid foundation of faith as we're asking for them to consider living a life that's worthy of the gospel. But we go straight to this is what it should look like rather than this is who God is and why we can build our lives on his foundation. And I think at the core, Ruth, it's teaching your children how to choose to do the right thing. Doing the right thing without that choice being made does not prepare them for adulthood. They need to be taught how to choose and why to choose to do the right thing, not simply choosing the right thing.

Correct. Let's move into the 12 truths that you picked out in your book. Let's grab a few that we want to talk about. Just list them for us and then we'll get into some questions. Well, the best way to tell you about how this book came to be is that a couple of years ago, you could walk into Hobby Lobby and see these, like, our family rules. I don't know if you remember that, but you walk in. We bought them.

Are you kidding? So they're really cute, right? Most of the time it's like farmhouse themed. And it's usually like, in this house, we say, please, we take off our shoes. We don't leave, you know. We brush our teeth. Well, you know, stuff like that. And I said to Troy one day, I said, do you want to buy one of those or what are our, quote, family rules? And he said, you know, babe, I really feel like I would love for our kids to be able to look up and see a list of things that we aspire to that are biblically based, not just like in this house. These are the things that we say we're about. But what does God say we must be about? And so I said, well, then why don't you write those for us? And so these 12 are not exhaustive. They're not the only 12 things that we aspire to, but they're 12 beginnings. And it starts at the very beginning, love, loving God with all our hearts and then ultimately hating sin, especially your own. Because when you start at the very basis of why you need Jesus, then you can start moving on to all the other things that we see and hope to build our families upon.

Yeah, it's so good. And I love the fact that you said, why don't you write them, honey? Well, he did. And so then that actually became prints that we made for our home and then for our customers at Grace Laced as well. But that's how it turned into the book where we said, okay, now that we wrote these, let's flesh this out as in terms of how we talk about these 12 in our own homes. Did Troy find that scripture talks about cleanliness being next to godliness? Are we still looking for that scripture? I want to find that one.

He didn't put that as one of the top 12, you know? That's crazy. In fact, Ruth, you have a great story about losing your temper. And this is a good example of how to be open and honest in front of your kids. And you lost your temper. So I'm going to out you a little bit here, but you wrote it in the book.

What happened? Well, well, which time? Because I mean, my goodness. I love that answer.

That's a good answer. This is that one where it became an opportunity to share some truths with your kids. Well, as you can imagine, being a mom of six and having everything from college bound kids to children learning how to actually like put away their laundry and making sure that they clean the bathroom when it's their turn.

You know, we have the whole range. I often find myself impatient because I struggle with feeling like I want things done my way. And most of the time, there are things like who's cleaning out the fridge?

Why didn't you guys do this? Even though we've already talked about it 10 times. You know, the things where I expect some level of perfection. And I can think of so many times that I think what I explained in the book was that so many times when I lose my temper, it is a display of how I've put something else, my comfort, my expectation or my desire for perfection above my love for God. It's most of the time, it's a display of my worship of self, my worship of my own comfort, and my making an idol of what I want this house to be about. And usually that starts with the word, you know, perfect something, you know, there's always some idea of perfection in my mind. And I want everybody to know when they've didn't meet the expectation to get me to that point.

You know, that really struck me because I maybe it's just I haven't read that in such a succinct fashion when something gets you when you get angry about something, is it an idol? That's a great question to ask yourself at any age. And I think that one of the best ways to do that self assessment is to say, am I willing to sin to get what I want, or is not getting what I want causing me to sin? And so when I think about that, in terms of being a mama, it's okay to want the dishes done.

It's okay to want everybody to pick up after the game that they played. But the way I communicate that will reveal whether I think that getting my way is more important than honoring the Lord. Ruth, there's a time your husband Troy was struggling to read the Bible and you know that that is the pace of life sometimes. And he shared this experience with your kids.

Just being a mom observing that example, what took place and how was it a positive thing to say to your kids? I'm not really reading the word right now. Well, between the two of us, Troy honestly has a better, consistent and disciplined routine. But we all, right, all of us going through seasons where we're not getting a whole lot out of it. Or we're thinking, wow, why did I not see the fruit of that time today? And so I love that he often shares with the boys that it's a matter of walking consistently in the relationship with the Lord, even when that day you don't necessarily feel up for it or you don't feel like it's some big dramatic experience. And so he's modeled for them, hey, first thing in the morning when I wake up, and there's no magic to first thing in the morning. And he often says, hey, if it doesn't happen first thing in the morning, let's find some time later.

But he is always the first one up now. And he's modeling for them what it is to feast on God's word and the aroma of that. And just the fragrance of seeing their dad kind of like really enjoy it has really wooed them. That's good. I like that feasting on the word.

I like that. That's a good metaphor for what we should all be doing. It's so difficult to teach your kids if you're having a hard time, like you said, getting into that reading and that discipline yourself. What advice would you have for the parents who do struggle with that consistent time?

What, you know, I think the obvious answer is just do it. But, you know, again, that doesn't always get someone motivated to go. So what, what can they do to recognize the importance of doing it? Well, I will just tell you what I preach to myself, because I, it's a perennial struggle in my own life to remember that I need to be fed. So some things, some practical things that have really helped me is sometimes I mix it up by going on a walk and listening to audio Bible or listening as I walk.

I think that makes a big difference. I think sometimes it really just helps to remember that it doesn't, this might be the theme of my interview right now, but it doesn't have to be perfect, right? I think, especially as a mom, sometimes I go, I said I was going to start on January 1. I was going to go through the Bible in a year, and now I'm on day 12 and I'm already behind.

I guess I'll just give that up. No, start again tomorrow. Because if the goal is to know Christ and to love Him more and to align your heart and your life to look more like Him, then tomorrow is not too late to begin. But when the goal is to feel good about your Christian walk and to think yourself a good believer and to prove that you can check things off the list, then yeah, you're going to be really discouraged to start again.

So I think it really helps to do that self-assessment and say, what is my motivation? Because if it's Jesus and knowing Him more, then I will begin again tomorrow, even if it's five minutes, even if it starts with, I love that story about Susanna Wesley, about how she had all these children and the only time she had with the Lord was to throw the apron over her head and that signal to her kids, I'm having a moment. I'm praying and I'm talking to the Lord.

I'm throwing the apron over my head. So for so many of us, it's not going to be a quiet walk in the woods. It's not going to be all this alone time. We're surrounded by demands and children, but take a moment, even if it means you open up this book or your Bible and just say, hey guys, I'm going to just listen to the word for five minutes here. Yeah. And that's such good admonishment. It always is buttressed by a good story. So I think you and Troy, you were sleep deprived.

The kids were young. You were dying on the vine. A lot of moms are leaning in right now. I'm right there.

That's where I'm at. And Troy suggested something to you that really meant something about reading. So you're referring to the time where we had a child who just didn't sleep.

And you know, people can write and tell me all the things about what he might have needed during that time. But we tried everything and he was about four and he just woke up seven or eight times a night. And you know, you get to that point where months in and you start feeling like, I just can't function. And so all I wanted to do in the morning was, well, I can't get up.

I have to sleep until as late as possible because I'm miserable. And so one morning, after a season of feeling like he was running on empty, he just got up and he said, and I go, what are you doing? He goes, I got to get up and read my Bible. And I go, how can you afford to lose any sleep and get up and do this? And he goes, I can't afford not to.

That was his answer. And his answer ultimately was to remind me that there are times and it doesn't mean that there's some formula for you have to get up even when you're tired, but that there is a need that's far beyond sleep and food and shelter. It's really of the soul that we must commune with God when we are children of God, we have to. And so, you know, when you've been running on empty and dried up after a season with one of the themes that I'm hearing you talk about, especially I want to again direct this toward the moms, but this affects dads to the balance between feeling guilty and feeling motivated.

And I, you know, diets don't work when it's guilt driven, you know, that you give up, you have the donut, shouldn't have done that now more guilt. You know, so when you apply that to spiritual disciplines, I mean, when the, when that person is motivated, as you're describing, like Troy saying, man, I need to read the word more than I need sleep. That's pretty profound, but that person that's maybe their whole Christian life has been built on guilt, not on love and respect for the Lord and the right thing to do, but not through guilt through relationship.

Just describe that for me, how to move someone from the guilt environment to the man, I just need it. I lived most of my life operating out of fear of not having approval, not pleasing the Lord, thinking if I had my quiet time, he'd be pleased with me. And if I didn't, then, oh my goodness, maybe he doesn't even want to hear from me because in my mind, I thought he was the kind of heavenly father that would be sitting there cross armed going, well, you're having a bad day because I told you, you should be in the Psalms by now in your Bible reading, you know, like tap, tap, tap.

What are you so behind in my mind? That's the narrative I had of a holy father in heaven. And so to move our hearts from the place where we are striving for God's grace, striving for approval, fear of not having blessing and favor to move from that place to striving as in working hard and pursuing with great intent, striving in grace.

The difference there is you cannot give away or operate out of what you don't have. And so we have to taste and see that the Lord is good first and foremost. So for the listener out there who goes, well, I don't really know why I'd want to open my Bible.

I feel real dried up in my soul and I feel exhausted and I just feel like it would be checking off the list. I would say, you know what, the Psalmist felt that way at times to start there, find out what is so great and what is so satisfying to the writers of the word. Like, why did they know that God was faithful and good? I think a self-assessment might also be that if you consider your faith transactional, if I do these good things, these right things, then God will. And fill in the blank, he'll bless me, he'll give me the new car, he'll give me a house, whatever it might be. That's so transactionally based that when it doesn't happen, now you have a remorse. You have anger toward God because I did what I was supposed to do. And it's such a vicious cycle and it's not healthy spiritually. God is not transactional that way.

He wants your relationship. And so then when bad things happen, you're still leaning into him and you're trusting him. And the amazing thing is, I hope someone who's listening this, I hope this is like a reminder for the listener. But when you look at the story of redemption from beginning to end, it's God continually putting on display, he's doing what we cannot. I mean, when he walked through the broken bodies of the animals with the covenant with Abraham saying, I'm going to put you to sleep and I'm going to fulfill the covenant by myself and do that. That's, you know, in the Old Testament, but ultimately to Jesus Christ dying on the cross. Yes.

We did not do that. And so I think when we feel the struggle of like, I can't handle my life, I can't do my Christian walk well enough, I'm going to ruin my kids. When you feel those things and that narrative is kind of crowding into your head, you got to start with the reality that God's callings are his enablings. When you are his child, he will give you exactly what you need for the very things he calls you to. And it's always been about him holding all things together as we read in Colossians. It's always been about him doing the impossible, right? It's always been Ephesians 3 about him doing more than we can ask or imagine. I'm sitting here. That's what excites me. Yeah. And my hope is to say yes, to like reach out and like reach across this, your earbuds and to say, if you are weary, this is worth pursuing because he's pursuing you.

Yeah, that's so true. Describe that worship, the reading of the word in your home. What have you and Troy found that really has worked with your six boys, you know, as a regular rhythm to doing, you know, reading and worship and spending time together spiritually? Well, they all put on ties and we get our hymnals out and they sit at work, you know, and they play their piano.

No, it never looks like that. It looks like sometimes it's in the car when we're driving from one place to another and we say, hey, nobody's on their headphones, right? Let's let's have a conversation. Let's talk about the word now. Sometimes it looks like us finishing up dinner and me saying, hey, I made a little dessert or extra something for us to nibble on. Let's just hang around for a while while Baba reads from the word and talks about what he got out of it today. Whether you're using a devotional like the one I've written here, because the goal with writing foundations was to help you get the conversation started.

It's for parents who go, I don't really know what to say or what to read or how to even pass on something that I'm not sure I'm getting much out of. And so we've started that conversation to help you lay down that that groundwork, that true foundation of faith with your kids to get that conversation going. But if you are in the word yourself and you want to share, just say, guys, I read out of Philippians today. I want to tell you what I read. Let's talk about it. And so it can be as simple as that. And I think one of the things that really helped me as a mama who struggles with perfection is to remember that just because it didn't go really well yesterday doesn't mean we can't try it again today. Just because we don't do it exactly from six to six thirty every night doesn't mean we failed.

And I think Troy has done a really good job of reminding me, because in our Instagram-able world, I like Instagram, I work on Instagram, I'm on Instagram. But sometimes we think we peer into another person's life and we think their family looks perfect. They're all sitting quietly. Nobody in their family is dead. You know, radio silent when you ask them who is Jesus?

You know, you're like, they're all doing so well. No, just remember that it's not perfect for anyone and that even if you have a child who's thrown a fit in the middle of your family devotions time, that might be the very topic that God wants you to address that night. And I think one of the great things as a parent is intentionally trying to keep your child's heart tender toward the word, not brittle. Absolutely. You know, so think of that as you're setting up those conversations.

How do I keep my kid's heart as tender toward the Lord as possible? And in our house. Usually not finger wagging. Right. And in our house, the number one way to do that is for us to go first.

Yeah. For us as parents to be the example of tenderness and vulnerability and for us to confess first and say, I'm the one that needs Jesus today. And when you go first and say, you're the one who's screwing up, you're the one who is needing to remind yourself that Jesus is all and not perfect schedules or not accomplishing all your goals, then they are able and they're brave enough to say, OK, I get it too. Yeah, this has been really good, Ruth.

I hope the listeners, the viewers have caught this. This is so critical in your parenting journey to develop the heart. You know, somebody Ken Wilgus, who's been on the broadcast, said you're trying to launch adults, not children. And that's a great statement.

You know, spiritually, emotionally, the whole bit. You're not trying to launch children. You're trying to launch an adult. And these are great insights on how to do that. Ruth, thank you for being with us. Thanks for having me. So appreciate it.

And boy, if you need this kind of help, this is a resource that you need to get. And I'd like to encourage you to, you know, help us in ministry, make a gift of any amount. And we'll send you a copy of Ruth's book to help you in that parenting journey.

So you're getting really a twofer, right? You're helping minister to other parents and you're getting a resource that will really help you in your own parenting journey. So do that. Make a gift today and we'll send you the book is our way of saying thank you. Donate today. Ask for your copy of Foundations. Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459. Or stop by the episode notes where we'll have the links. And be sure to check out our Live It Challenge for great activities to encourage you in your family's faith. When you sign up, we'll send a monthly challenge straight to your email inbox.

All the details are at our website. Be sure to join us next time as we hear from Pastor Andy Stanley, encouraging you to look past your circumstances and to rest in Christ. The foundation of our faith is a person. The foundation of our faith is not an experience. The foundation of our faith is not an answer to prayer. The foundation of our faith is a person. Jesus Christ, the Lord. On behalf of Jib Daily and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.