Count Your Blessings: 5 Ways to Connect Your Kids To God’s Heart

I am always looking for ways to connect my kids to God’s heart. I want them to live and breathe a life that reflects Jesus. I want their character to be shaped so they can become giants of goodness and love. While our itty bitty ones may be years away from truly understanding what this looks like, there are ways we can connect them to God’s heart, even now.

1. Count Your Blessings. I know that one of the best ways I can model Jesus for my kids is with my gratitude. Our children need to see and hear us physically counting our blessings. Daily. They need to watch us number the many ways God has lavished his love on us through people, experiences and even things. Best-selling author, Colleen Coble’s latest book, The Blessings Jar is a wonderful tool for teaching kids to count their blessings. In this sweet story, Punky Grace is encouraged by her grandmother to turn a bad day into a good one by stopping along the way to recognize the many ways God blesses her day. This precious story is the perfect tool for fostering an attitude of gratitude in your child’s heart. We need to show our children that there is always something to be thankful for, even in the midst of hard days.

2. Pray. Even over the little things. A paper cut. . .an itchy bug bite. . .a sick friend. . . Practice prayer with your children so that it becomes a habit in their lives. I can’t think of a better way to connect our kids to God’s heart. We cannot expect deep prayers of faith at first but the simple, “Jesus, heal my boo boo” prayers are as powerful as our most passionate petitions to God’s ears.

3. Find the good in people. As mature adults, we {hopefully} understand that sometimes people are just not acting their best. We need to help our children understand this too by looking for the good in people, despite their current actions or attitudes.

4. Know who God is. One of the most important spiritual lessons we can teach our children is the character of God. They need to know who God is to connect to his heart. Every beautiful trait of our Father is important to a child’s journey of faith. It’s never too early to begin to speak the character of God into your child’s heart. Tommy Nelson’s latest board book for little ones is the perfect tool to do just that. My ABC of God Loves Me shares the essence of God from A-Z with descriptive words like amazing, forgiving, generous and understanding. If your child is small, I highly recommend this wonderful resource to teach your child the character of God. If your child is older, simply point them to scriptures that speak of God’s love, forgiveness, fairness and generosity.

5. Find the good in every situation. Even on the hard days or through difficult circumstances, children need to see us choose to find the good. Donald Miller’s post yesterday about redeeming negative life events was an inspiring reminder to do just that. When we purpose to redeem negative events through positive responses, we not only turn them around for ourselves, we model this important behavior for our children. This is God’s heart for our lives. We know that he will allow bad things to happen. . .even if we aren’t sure why. We need to further understand that he gives us the strength to find the good in each situation and this process draws us closer to his heart.

Our friends at Tommy Nelson are giving away a copy of The Blessings Jar and My ABC of God Loves Me today! As always, they want to help moms connect their kids to God’s heart and these two resources are great tools for the process.

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In what ways are you purposing to connect your kids to God’s heart?

I was given a copy of these resources to review but all opinions are my own.

Don’t forget to enter to win the BeYOUtiful Grace giveaway! Over $1000 in amazing prizes for YOU including a $100 Visa GC, beautiful art, jewelry, accessories, books, music and more! Giveaway ends TOMORROW at midnight so go enter now!!

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