Making Time to Unpack the Truths of Scripture for Your Family {and Giveaway}

I’ve been a mom for almost 14 years and married for almost 24; therefore, I’ve been cooking (meaning beyond the bags of ramen noodles and boxes of mac and cheese) for almost a quarter of a century. But until just a few weeks ago I had never used my oven’s broiler.

True story.

A friend was giving me instructions on how to recreate her amazing crusty bread/tomato-basil/goat cheese recipe, and she threw in the directive “broil.” With a completely straight face, I said, “I don’t even know what that means.” She giggled. And then she realized I was dead serious.

Then, with a few simple easy-to-follow directions, she taught me how to engage my neglected broiler! I have made her recipe no less than three times in three weeks, and I’ve been searching for other things to broil. Who needs a toaster when one can simply broil using the oven?? Who knew?!

{I am now a broiling beast. Seriously, I’m practically an expert now.}

This whole experience made me realize how often in our family I nonchalantly toss around terms that I expect (hope? pray?) everyone understands.

When I say to my three-year-old that she needs to ask her sister for forgiveness or when I exclaim that we all just need to be at peace with each other or when I say that one needs to accept another’s “no,” I sometimes get blank stares. Essentially they’re saying to me, “I don’t even know what that means.”

The thing with kids, though, is that they aren’t going to say, “Excuse me, Mom, I don’t understand what you mean. Please enlighten me on the nuances of forgiveness and show me how it can work flawlessly in our family.” No. They’re just going to fling a half-hearted, “Okay!” at me as they scurry happily along to their next activity.

It’s why, as parents, we really need to make time to unpack the truths of Scripture not only for ourselves, but also for our families.

For example, the Bible lays out some clear instructions for how we are to treat each other. We are to:

• Love one another (John 15:12)
• Be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10)
• Build one another up (Ephesians 4:29)
• Accept one another (Romans 15:7)
• Instruct one another (Romans 15:14)
• Serve one another (Galatians 5:13)
• Carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2)
• Encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
• Be at peace with one another (Mark 9:50)
• Rejoice with one another (1 Corinthians 12:26)
• Pray for one another (James 5:16)
• Forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32)

But we can’t just stop here. Because what does it look like, really, to love one another? to serve one another? to encourage one another?

It’s our responsibility — for both ourselves and our children — to dig deep into these Biblical commands unraveling them for ourselves AND for our kids. It’s why my husband and I wrote Undivided: Living FOR and Not Just WITH One Another.

A simple, easy-to-use family devotional, it will help you take your entire family through each of these “one another” passages. With its specific examples, discussion questions and family activities — you’ll unpack, together, what it means to live for each other even as the pressures and distractions and temptations of this fallen world try to pull you apart.

This post may contain affiliate links through which Club31Women might get a small compensation – with no additional cost to you.  See my disclosure policy here.

And good news! Today, you can enter to win a copy of Undivided: Living FOR and Not Just WITH One Another!

Blessings,

Rhonda Owens

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Gifted with one beautiful daughter for her tenth wedding anniversary and another for her twentieth, high school English teacher turned homeschooling mom Rhonda Owens is passionate about the Word. She loves nothing more than to study it, talk about it, write about it, apply it, live it and teach it… all preferably accompanied by deep community and good chocolate. Exploring with husband Mitchell and her two girls is a favorite pastime, and you might find them snorkeling, hiking, or kayaking in a remote corner of God’s world — or simply walking in the woods behind their home in little Bryan, Ohio. Co-author (with her husband Mitchell) of the book Undivided: Living FOR and Not Just WITH One Another, her writing can be discovered at the newly launched MitchellAndRhonda.com. You can also follow Rhonda on Facebook, on Instagram  (rhonda_owens) or at Ungrind.org or ForTheFamily.org where she contributes regularly.