At our house it takes some effort to gather everyone for occasional family devotions. After willing ourselves to the couch and entering into a few moments of opening silence, reluctance generally melts into repose. 

When it’s time to sing and pray, the older kids jump in — but our six year old isn’t interested. Last night this irritated me which, of course, made him want to do it less.

An hour later, Jesus having helped loosen my grip of control, I touched his head to bless him as he drifted to sleep. His sleepy eyes glanced at me and, seeing tenderness instead of irritation, he reached up for a hug. 

His interactions with mama, daddy, and other adults will, I suspect, have a greater impact on his view of God than our formal prayer times.

“How can we help a child respond to God’s extravagant invitation to friendship?” Lacy Borgo asks in an interview this week with Nathan Foster on the Renovaré Podcast. Her new book, Spiritual Conversations with Children: Listening to God Together, comes out next month. Being fully and lovingly present, they discuss, is one of the best ways to help a child know they matter to God. And we’re changed, too, when we offer our full presence to a child — or to any person for that matter.

chAnd in a new essay, Richella Parham helps us rediscover holiness as more than simply avoiding vice. The opposite of legalism, true holiness is a life of virtue and freedom.