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Now HOW are these things taught? We have affirmed that the battle is the Lord’s and that He is the one who will save our children and grow them, yet He has chosen to involve us. How does that work? You will often hear the cliché, “God helps those who help themselves.” In that worldview, God is my yes-man, bound to respond to my good works. I get the glory for trying so hard to earn God’s help. This is an unbiblical view. The Bible does teach that God helps those who trust Him, so that He gets the glory for what is accomplished and we receive the joy of God’s miraculous work and presence in our lives. So what practically does our trusting involvement look like? Part of our trust in God is trust that His Word does not return empty, but is powerful and effective. Trust in God makes His Word our daily bread. So in general we participate in God’s work by teaching and implementing the Word of God. There are 6 main ways we impart the truth of God as revealed in His Word to our children.

1 – Knowledge of the Word of God

2 – Prayer

3 – Example

4 – Boundaries

5 – Discipline

6 – Traditions

We will reverse the order here and first focus on traditions because I believe it is the glue for all the other things we do in our children’s lives as well as the least taught and appreciated. Our individualistic culture of entertainment and novelty does not value tradition as it ought to. Traditions impart a great wealth of heritage, knowledge and freedom to families. A great deal of the Old Testament describes traditions that the Lord gave to His people to teach and strengthen them. Noel Piper wrote a wonderful, thought provoking book on treasuring Christ in our traditions. She writes concerning the passing on to our children of God as our treasure, “Things like that don’t just happen. They come first from our own hearts that are tuned into God. Then they happen because we plan to include our children in the God-air we breathe. Without planning, we’ll practice our Bible memory just once or twice and then no more. We’ll do lots of good things, but only a couple of times. One of the great strengths of good traditions in our lives is the repetition – not something done once, then something else, then another thing altogether, but good things done regularly, dependably until they become habits, woven into our very being.”

Piper looks to Deuteronomy 4:9-10 for a Biblical definition of effective and godly tradition; traditions that edify and point us toward the Lord of hosts. She draws out three was of defining tradition: “1 – A tradition is a planned habit with significance. 2 – Tradition is the handing down of information, beliefs and worldview from one generation to another by word of mouth and by regular repetition of example, ceremony and celebration. 3 – For a Christian, tradition is laying up God’s words in our own hearts and passing His words to the next generation.”

Families have traditions, whether they helpful or not. Whenever a level of significance is added to a repetition or habit of life, a tradition is created. The meaning imparted through the repetition can be good or bad. Predictably chaotic holidays or a consistency of randomness gives a family a tradition of chaos or disorder. Whatever your family repeats becomes a tradition and a heritage for your children. Think of your own childhood. Likely the repeated things stand out powerfully far above the rest as defining who you left your home as. Perhaps something you always did at Christmas morning that filled that time with wonder and anticipation, teaching you the value of delayed gratification and giving you stability the rest of the year because you knew the family would come together at least one day soon. Traditions are powerful because humans learn primarily through repetition and we feel security through regularity. They give freedom because they define the seasons and give us a stable structure within which to move with peace and confidence. Traditions become like a comfortable pair of jeans; they come to fit wonderfully and they allow you to do less planning to put together an outfit! When we have rich, established traditions, we do not have as much pressure to constantly be inventing our lives.

Traditions are powerful whether they positive or negative, profound or ordinary, God-centered or not. Piper quotes a letter she received to show “that even in traditions that seem shallow, God releases glimmers of his presence.’

I grew up in a troubled, angry, and unpredictable family. One thing proved a small but weight anchor for me; family holiday traditions. We didn’t have Norman Rockwell holidays; ours were a much less funny version of The Honeymooners. But a base of security was laid down for me in the predictable cycle of heart-shaped Jell-O for Valentines day and French Toast with thread sewn through the bread slices (April’s Fool!) and Easter baskets and Thanksgiving salad in that special bowl and Christmas decorations long, long past their prime but welcomed every December. No matter what else was going on, these traditions went on, and they strengthened me. I counted on them, and they were there, year in and year out. It wasn’t enough of course, but it was something, and God used it for my good in the midst of the pain. Red heart-shaped Jell-O, for crying out loud. Such a little thing. But red-heart-shaped Jell-O year after year after year after year was something else entirely.

In this story we also clearly see that it is the Lord Himself who draws children to Himself. Only God can give Himself to a child, and He can use any material available, even Jell-O or ugly old decorations.

Click here to read Part 4 of this series.