15 Jan Roots and Shoots

My oldest daughter is 11 now, halfway through the first year of middle school and sprouting her baby wings. If I’m being honest, it’s terrifying.

I was meditating on that when I started a Bible study on Genesis (through my church). We discussed how Moses wrote the book of Genesis for the Israelites as they were wondering in the desert, newly freed from a life of slavery but not yet home. He wrote Genesis to remind the Israelites who they were and where they came from, even as they stood on the precipice of so many unknowns. “Roots and shoots” is how the teacher characterized it.

Roots and Shoots

Roots and shoots. Exactly the thing I pray for my not-a-baby baby girl as she matures. So how DO we give our wild ones the roots they need to fly? How do we keep then safe in the knowledge of they are as the Imago Dei, yet desperately in need of a Saviour?

Before we had children (a dim memory lost in the haze of the last sleep-deprived decade), I used to think we would have a separate verse for each child as they grew. And they do have verses and prayers that correspond to their biblical name, but as each child was baptized, we returned to Ephesians 3:14-19 over and over again.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (ESV)

We give them the gospel, served up in our home, in our hearts, in our actions daily. We read Scripture. To ourselves and to our children. We put on the full armor of God and wade out into the world. We are salt and light in a dark, dark place. She’s watching me.

The truth? If we aren’t rooted, our children won’t be either. This is isn’t a laundry list of ways to keep my girl safe.

How will you root your babes in the knowledge of Him?