Episode 2: Developing Delight for God’s Word

Joy McClain: Erin, we know you have four boys at home. I have to know: what is grocery shopping like for a family with four boys?

Erin Davis: You do not want to know what it’s like! Next to our mortgage, groceries are the biggest expense at our house.

We both have farms, Joy. I’ve often joked that I’m going to put in silos just for cereal. So, cereal silos need to be a thing.

Joy: It could be a great invention.

Erin: It could be! But you know what I’ve decided? I’ve decided they’re actually that hungry all the time. It used to be, like, “You can’t be hungry! You just ate!” But they’re starving all the time. They’re eating me out of house and home.

Joy: Bottomless pit.

Erin: Yes.

Joy: Well, we’re here to talk about boys and hunger, but we’re not focusing on physical needs. Erin will help us instill a different kind of hunger in the next generation of boys.

This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Joy McClain.

In part one of the series, “Lies Boys Believe,” Erin showed us why we need to engage with the next generation of boys. On this episode, Erin will show us one practical step we can take to help boys develop a hunger for God’s Word. Here’s Erin.

Erin: About a decade ago, my husband and I bought a small farm which came with a fifty-year-old farmhouse, which needed a lot of remodeling.

So, we gutted it. Our friends and family came around us. We had several weeks of hammers going and saws going and wallpaper stripping and floors being pried up. We were getting close to the part where everything was down to the bones, as they say. We were down to the sub-floor. We could see the studs inside the wall.

And all of a sudden, I said, “Stop working!” I went around to our friends and family and handed out Sharpies. I said, “Before we start to put the floor back on, before we start to hang the drywall again, I want you to cover our home in Bible verses and blessings for our family. And they did. You can’t tell it now because it’s all been covered up, but written on the sub-floors, hidden under the paint on our walls, are some of our favorite passages from God’s Word.

Our oldest boys were little at the time. I think they were four and two, and Judah and Ezra had not been born yet, they came along later. We brought them home to that farmhouse. But even though those two weren’t there, and even though the oldest two were too young to remember it, I hope that decision to write God’s Word on our home has had a lasting impact on their lives.

Here’s the story behind the story of our farmhouse. This is such an amazing God thing.

My husband, Jason’s, grandpa—we call him Papa—is a man of God, a true patriarch of our family. He served in his church for decades. He taught little boys’ Sunday school well into his seventies and eighties. He was a builder in our small town.

After we bought the house, we were taking Papa through it. He ran his hand on the oak banister, and just as if he was telling us the temperature outside said, “Oh, yes, I remember when I built this house.”

He built our house in 1968, and we didn’t know it until after we’d bought it. And that, too, is a picture of raising boys. My boys stand on the shoulders of their daddy, who stands on the shoulders of his daddy, who stands on the shoulders of his daddy. They’re fortunate that their legacy is men who love Jesus and love His Word.

And all of that, the house has become, really, a real-life metaphor for our desire to build our family on the solid foundation of God’s Word. That’s that parable right in Scripture: the wise man builds his house on the rock; the foolish man on the shifting sands of lies and deception and the culture. We want a house built on the Rock.

Raising sons who love the Bible can feel daunting, especially when we’re not having any luck just to get them to wipe the toothpaste gloop out of the sink. Am I right? But it’s not as complex as we tend to make it. There is, I believe, a foundational passage in God’s Word for how we raise children who build their lives on the solid Rock of God’s Word.

We’re going to be in Deuteronomy 6:4–9.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. . . .

“And these words that I have commanded to you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

“You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (vv. 4, 6–9)

Here on The Deep Well, we like to take the scenic route through Scripture. So, let’s pull off on the lookout here and marvel that these words were written nearly 3,000 years ago in an ancient Middle East culture, and yet they still provide really practical parenting wisdom for us today.

Let’s break this passage down.

First, it’s clear that God is God. There is no other. That’s what is written in verse 4. “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

The second thing we can observe is that He has called you—yes, you—to love Him with everything you’ve got. That’s our first responsibility in thinking about the next generation. Are we loving God with everything we’ve got?

Second, He has called you—yes, you—to love Him with everything you’ve got. You can’t expect your children or grandchildren or the other children around you to love God with everything they have if you’re not loving Him with everything you have. This is your first and most important job, not just as a parent or grandparent, but as an image-bearer of God. Your responsibility is to love Him with everything you’ve got.

Three, we are to commit ourselves fully to God’s commands. That’s not just, like, a platitude. That’s not a happy thought. God’s commands have a place. They exist in God’s Word, and we’re supposed to commit ourselves to lives of knowing and living God’s Word and not do it half way.

And then we get practical: repeat God’s Word again and again and again and again and again and again to your children. And here’s how you do it. Lean in. Listen close. Here’s the secret: you talk about the Bible everywhere you go in your everyday life.

• You talk about the Word at home.
• You talk about the Word in the car. I’ve often said, “My car is my Sunday school classroom.” My kids always want to have spiritual conversations in the car–probably because we’re in the car so often.
• You talk about the Bible at bedtime.
• You talk about the Bible at the breakfast table.
• You surround your home with God’s letters from your true home.

Every parent knows that way more is caught than taught. And the principle here in Deuteronomy is: throw Scripture at your kids as often as possible because some of it’s going to stick.

Notice what God did not command in this passage (all-boy moms, this is going to be your relief). He did not say, “Have family devotions where all of your children can easily find the book of Habakkuk and they’re always well behaved.”

This is not a one-size-fits-all formula, which is good, because there’s no family that’s the same. And the thing about raising kids is the seasons are always changing. Just when one thing works, they change, and you’ve got to try something new.

Instead of giving us a program here in Deuteronomy, God calls us to a lifestyle and a lifetime of knowing and teaching God’s Word.

The story in the Old Testament about manna is a literal story. It was literal manna. I like to call it dipping dots from heaven because Scripture says that it was sweet like honey.

So there really were dipping dots from heaven, but I’ve also found it to be a really beautiful metaphor for our intake of God’s Word. You cannot exist on whatever feeding of God’s Word you got yesterday or the week before or the year before, and neither can your kids. You need a steady intake of Scripture, and they need a steady intake of Scripture. So it’s a lifestyle and a lifetime. There’s no finish line. We don’t arrive. We’re constantly trying to ingest the Word and to share it with others.

What Moses wrote here in Deuteronomy 6 in the Old Testament, Jesus magnified in the New Testament.

Let’s jump here from Deuteronomy 6 to the Great Commission. And the Great Commission is for all followers of Jesus. You already know, I’m sure, that these are the final words recorded in the book of Matthew. So you know all that’s happened:

• Jesus has come as man.
• He has lived his ministry.
• He has told the world about the kingdom.
• He has been crucified for us.
• He stayed in the grave.
• He’s been resurrected.
• Then He went back around, reminding His disciples that they are going to have to take the mantle because the Church is about to be born.

And then right before He’s ready to ascend, He gives us these words in Matthew 28:18–20:

And Jesus came and said to them: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And, behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.”

We’re big on the evangelism part of the Great Commission—and we should be. People who are lost need to know that Jesus has all the authority of heaven and earth and that He has a plan for their redemption. People who are lost need to know. We need to go, therefore, and tell them, and then baptize them as they become disciples.

But we tend to miss the second part of the Great Commission, and it’s equally critical. Verse 20, Jesus said, “Teaching them to observe all I have commanded you.” 

Teach the Word. That’s not just for people like me, with a microphone and a podcast. It’s not just for your pastor. It’s not just for your Sunday school teacher. If you are in Christ, you are on co-mission with Jesus. And the mission is this: we make disciples, and then we remind those disciples over and over of the commands of God that are supernaturally preserved for us in the Word of God. 

In other words: talk about them when you’re at home, and when you’re on the road, and when you’re going to bed, and when you’re getting up. “Tie them on your hands and wear them on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

There’s nothing new in the new. Jesus was affirming the strategy that Moses gave God’s people in Deuteronomy 6. It’s still the right strategy. We know God’s Word, and we share God’s Word with others. We talk about it everywhere we go.

Biblical literacy among adults in western countries is on a nosedive. So much so that many are calling it a crisis. It should go without saying that Christians not reading their Bible is a spiritual equivalent of a five-alarm fire.

That’s why this podcast exists. I want to help you know and love your whole Bible so you can help others know and love their whole Bible so they can help others know and love their whole Bible. I want to push back against this tendency that there are many of us who claim Christ and don’t open our Bibles.

But when I think of my sons and their friends, when I think of your sons and their friends, I’m actually filled with hope, not fear.

This summer our oldest son, Eli, was one of 115 senior high students who our church sent to camp. They actually went to the camp where I came to Christ as a fifteen-year old. So the beauty of my son reaching the age where I gave my life to Jesus and going to the camp where I gave my life to Jesus . . . it was a big moment for me.

I came back from that camp as a fifteen-year old, having never really read the Bible for myself, with an insatiable desire to read the Bible that has never gone away. I couldn’t get enough of it, and I still can’t.

And guess what? God did it for my boy. He came back hungry for the Bible. He immediately started a small group with other fifteen- and sixteen-year-old guys so that they could meet weekly and eat things at Sonic and talk about the Bible.

It’s been amazing to watch! I had this strong sense that week that God was going to move, and He did. Many of those 115 teenagers from our church gave their lives to Jesus for the first time. We had to have a special baptism service when they got back because so many of them needed to be immersed as an outpouring of their commitment to Jesus. But they also came back hungry. They want to be in the Bible.

Many of us are longing to see revival. I’m longing to see revival. But what I don’t want us to do is discount or dismiss or miss that revival is already happening in the hearts of so many young people. There will never be a throwaway generation. There will never be a generation that God doesn’t pursue and rise from within it spiritual leaders.

One Barna study focused on teenagers and their Bible study habits, and they found, I think, some interesting numbers:

• Seven out of ten teenagers own a Bible.
• 40% of teenagers (this is American teenagers) are reading their Bible at least four times a year.
• 25% of American teenagers are reading their Bibles weekly—that’s on their own, that’s not just sitting in a church service.

And even though they are technology natives, what the study found is they prefer a hard copy of the Bible. Why does that matter? Because they’re not just scrolling. They’re soaking. They’re writing in their Bibles. They’re noting. They’re applying.

Now, is there room for growth? Absolutely. But 25% of our teenagers reading their Bibles weekly should be celebrated because that’s actually a higher number than adults who are doing the same.

It’s not about the stats. It’s about planting and watering. If we want those truth-loving men we talked about in the first episode, if we want those men who have pledged their lives to the Word of God, and it shows in the way they lead their families and their communities and their places of business, those truth-loving men will first be truth-loving boys. We’ve got to train them up today for that future we dream of their tomorrow.

And while God can certainly—and He does—use our mistakes as parents as a cautionary tale for our children, the pattern of God is that what happens in this generation will be repeated in the next generation.

I saw an interesting thought (probably on social media) about how to have a family walk away from Christ in three generations. And the gist of it was this:

One generation doesn’t prioritize going to church. Now, is church what saves us? Absolutely not. But church is what God has given us, this mechanism, so we can live in this Deuteronomy 6 reality, where we’re always reminding each other of the Truth.

So one generation decides, “It’s not that important.” They still go. They go when it’s convenient.

The next generation, because it wasn’t a priority in their parents’ generation, they don’t go at all. “I believe in God. I don’t have to go to church,” is the mindset that often settles in there. And so Christian community becomes something that’s not a part of their life at all.

And then by the third generation, it’s not just church that doesn’t matter, it’s not just Scripture that doesn’t matter, it’s God that is no longer a part of that family’s life. Three generations.

Now, does it always happen that way? No. God’s a redeemer. There are a lot of people in church today whose parents weren’t in church. But God’s pattern is that what happens in this generation gets repeated in the next generation. That’s part of why He set up our families.

And God’s design is also that our homes are the first classrooms of our children. My mama was my first teacher, and what a teacher she was!

And it’s in our homes where worldviews and habits are first taught and caught and then passed on.

So, as you consider your essential role in teaching the next generation to delight in God’s Word, here are some diagnostic questions, and they’re not rhetorical. I’d like you to actually wrestle with them. And as I wrote them, I actually wrestled with them.

Is reading the Bible a daily habit? Is your salvation tied to your Bible reading plan? Of course it isn’t. There is no sticker chart in heaven. God isn’t up there, like, putting little stars in it and noticing when you miss a day. But the Word is what God has given you to keep you grounded in the Truth. You need it. You need it as much as you need breakfast–probably more.

So, currently, not in previous parts of your faith journey–currently: Is reading the Bible a daily habit? Or are you inconsistent? Our kids are watching. And if they see that Bible study is something that easily goes out the window when life gets stressful, they’re picking up on that.

Do your children see you reading the Bible? This is something we sometimes just need to do for show. There’s something certainly needs to be said for in the quiet of your own time with the Lord, with nobody watching. You read the Bible, and it’s time between you and the Lord. But if your children never see you with your Bible open, if they don’t know how you fit Bible study into your life, then they don’t have a grid to understand how they’re supposed to fit it into their life.

Are there ways you can intentionally infuse God’s Word into your daily life? Deuteronomy 6 is our example.

It comes down to the pictures we hang on our walls. If you were to come to the Davis farm today, you wouldn’t see the verses under the paint and under the floor, but you would see verses on our walls. That’s intentional.

When I was a high school history teacher, I covered my classroom in newspaper articles and headlines. The idea was that even when my students got bored and lost attention from me, and their eyes moved to somewhere else, that they would be absorbing something from history. 

I have the same mantra in our home, the same approach to our home. I hope that whatever room my boys are in, their eyes don’t move far from the Word of God.

It’s the conversation at the dinner table. You’re going to talk at the dinner table anyway.

We aren’t super consistent with this, but there have been times when we read a proverb a day at the breakfast table. And it’s simple. It doesn’t take long at all, but it’s a way to infuse God’s Word into our life.

Your bedtime routines. Our house is an old farmhouse. It’s Jack and Jill, so there’s two bedrooms upstairs with a bathroom in between. And we divide our family into littles and bigs. So the bigs are in one half, and the littles are in the other half.

Our bedtime routine takes a long time because I’m always trying to read them great books. So right now the littles and I are going through the “Chronicles of Narnia,” which I did with the bigs. I always try to read them Scripture, and their daddy is in there with us as we do that.

And the big boys, I’m reading a baseball book to them now because they love baseball, and I’m reading through the book of James.

I don’t want you to get the impression that my kids sit Indian style on their beds with their hands folded and asking questions. That’s not how it happens. But I trust that night after night, week after week, year after year of them hearing the Word is going to pay dividends.

Do you have those rhythms in your home?

Another thing I love to recommend, I think I probably recommended it on The Deep Well before, but it’s called, “Songs for Saplings.” It’s a woman who does music that’s straight Scripture. And one of them is a catechism. So a lot of mornings we just get on YouTube, put on “Songs for Saplings,” and they’re hearing straight Scripture as they go.

Get creative. And if you’re not creative, ask your friend who is creative. The goal is to just saturate your family life in Scripture.

Here’s a heart question, cause God looks at the heart: is God’s Word your delight? And if it’s not, how can we expect it to be appealing to the next generation?

I had the privilege of growing up in a home with a daddy who did not know Jesus, but with a mama who did and who loves the Word. In fact, it used to be embarrassing to me because everytime I found her reading the Bible, she would be crying. I would roll my eyes and be, like, “MOM! Why do you always cry?!” I know now why she cries, because the Word of God was precious to her. And what a legacy that is? Not just that my mom read the Bible, but that my mom treasured the Bible.

And if you can honestly say, “No. It’s become dry for me. It’s just something I do. I don’t delight in it.” Here’s an opportunity: invite the Spirit to give you fresh awe, fresh love for His Word. And so often, I’m not willing to do those things for me, but I am willing to do them for my boys.

It’s a delight—not statistics, not reading plans, not even frequency that is the heart of the matter. I don’t want you to take my word for it. I don’t ever want you to take my word for it. Take the Word’s word for it.

Psalm 119:24. If you know Psalm 119, you know it’s the longest psalm in the Bible. It’s longer than many entire books of the Bible. And many Bible scholars believe that what Psalm 119 really was was King David developing this psalm as a way to teach his young son, Solomon, the alphabet. So, like the instructions in Deuteronomy 6, David seized the opportunity to teach his son God’s Truth while he was doing a routine parenting task.

So, imagine David, imagine little Solomon, sitting across the table from him. And they’re working on the alphabet, and Solomon doesn’t quite have it yet. And so David is looking for ways to help this get ingrained into his son’s mind. And imagine that David looked at his little boy, and he said, “Say this after me, Solomon. ‘Your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors.’ Say it back to me, Bud, say it back to me.” And little Solomon says, “Your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors.”

Now we know that Solomon went on to be wise and to walk with the Lord in some ways and to walk in folly in other ways. But we also know that he had a legacy of treasuring the Word of God given to him by his dad.

Delight is our North Star for helping the next generation treasure God’s Word.

Reading the Bible is not a duty. And there are no meaningless chores in the Christian life. It is our delight because it is knowing and trusting God’s Word and applying it—that’s how we learn to live free of the evil one.

The best approach for resisting lies is to know the Truth so well that when they come at us, we recognize them. And if our strategy with our sons is to run around everytime we think they’re being exposed to a lie and expose it for them, they never develop the muscles they’re going to need.

But if our strategy–and it is a strategy . . . Remember, we’re being strategic against an enemy who wants to take our kids out. If our strategy is to equip them with the Truth, they’ve got to know how delightful the Truth is. They’ve got to know it.

As we wrap up this episode, I wanted to read a section from Psalm 119. You can turn there with me. It’s Psalm 119:9–16. As I read it, I want you to again remember that context. This is a daddy trying to teach his son what really matters. He wrote these words. And as I read them, I want you to consider how you can teach those in your world what they say.

How can a young man keep his way pure?
   By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
   let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart
   that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord;
   teach me your statutes!
With my lips I declare
   all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies
   I delight as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts
   And l fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
   I will not forget your word.

Joy: We just heard a needed reminder: Each of us need to be in God’s Word ourselves and share it with others—in particular boys we know.

Erin and Jason wrote about this topic of studying God’s Word in their new book. It’s called, Lies Boys Believe and the Epic Quest for Truth.

Erin, how do you address this topic of studying the Bible in your book?

Erin: Well, here’s what happens: the two boys in the book, they go on a treasure hunt in an abandoned mine. Doesn’t that sound fun?

Joy: It does sound fun!

Erin: An older character in the story sends them on this little adventure, and they think they’re going to find gold or diamonds or something that kind of sounds more like pirate treasure. And what they find is a Bible for each of them. They’re disappointed at first, like, “Come on! You told us there was going to be treasure in here!”

And Pastor Ralph, the character who sent them into the mine, goes on to explain to them what Scripture teaches us—which is God’s Word is to be treasured above all riches. They don’t immediately believe that, and I understand that. The shinier things of the world can certainly seem like more of a treasure.

But as the journey goes on, and they understand that God’s Word is how they grow in wisdom, it’s how they understand their own identity and what they were made to do. It’s how they relate to their families. It’s how they understand the mission that God has for them. Then, over time, it increasingly becomes their treasure.

So, you know, learning God’s Word is a bit of a treasure hunt for all of us. And they just get to do it literally.

Joy: I love it! Thank you, Erin.

We want to send you a copy of Lies Boys Believe when you support The Deep Well podcast. We’re releasing this whole series in November of 2023. And this month, when you make a donation of any size to Revive Our Hearts, we’ll send you the book as our thanks.

Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com. There you can donate and, the added plus, you get the book.

And would you also send us an email at ReviveOurHearts.com and let us know: how is God using The Deep Well in your life?

Erin: Oh, thanks, Joy. Our co-host this season is Joy McClain. She is my friend, and she’s the author of Waiting for His Heart: Lessons from a Wife Who Chose to Stay. And if you don’t know Joy’s story, her husband Mark was an alcoholic. You call him a raging alcoholic, Joy, and you prayed for him to turn from that addiction and towards Jesus for twenty-two years. And you watched God do it! You watched God change his heart. I think that gives you a unique insight into raising boys.

You were here with us while we recorded the teaching for this series, so was Robert Wolgemuth, the author of Lies Men Believe. You both contributed to the part of this program we call, “Erin Unscripted.”

Erin Unscripted

Joy: Erin mentioned briefly that her father has not found the Lord, but her mother was in the Word. So, I have both parents who love the Lord, but I stepped into a marriage where I was the only one pouring out Jesus. I had every fear imaginable that my children would just walk away or end up with addictions and all these things.

There was something to that generational sin on my husband’s side that I was so fearful because generation upon generation suffered with addictions. But my son, when he was about fifteen, Erin, he got on his face, and he put a stake in the ground and said, “That generational sin stops with me.”

And to this day, he’s thirty-six years old, he loves the Lord and has never turned back. And I just want to encourage anyone who has a situation where their husband is not walking with the Lord or maybe struggling with pornography or an addiction or whatever, that doesn’t mean your children are automatically going to go on that path. Stake that promise in the ground, “But Lord, I’m going to trust You—not what my eyes see but what God’s heart desires.”

So I just want to encourage them in that.

Erin: Joy, God’s plan, God’s best is the husband and father that leads the family in following Jesus. But I’m a product, and you’re a product in a different way. My daddy still hasn’t given his life to the Lord and actually left his marriage when I was a little girl. And, looking back, I think that’s part of why my mom was so soft to the Lord because it was all on her, from a human perspective. Of course, the Holy Spirit is a Father to the fatherless. I can attest to that for sure.

But, yes, I’m sure there will be women listening that go, “My husband doesn’t read the Bible to my kids. He would never read a proverb at the breakfast table. He doesn’t even go to church with us.” So this legacy thought can be scary. But God interrupts that.

Joy: He is a redeeming Father. He is a Father to the fatherless. He is husband to the widow, or even the spiritual widow. So I want to encourage that.

Erin: Yes.

Joy: You know, this was very convicting. Like, “Oh I feel that I’m not doing so well.” But God’s Holy Spirit can redirect me.” So, I want to open like that.

What life changes, what rhythms in your life need to change so that your household does look like a household that is lovingly, actively pursuant of the Word and delighting in it.

Does anybody want to share? Because I know He’s pricking all of us. He certainly did me.

Erin: There was something I started last school year, (and I was amazed it worked). But as we were getting back into routine, I said to my boys, “You can count on Mama always being in the living room with my Bible open by 6 o’clock. I will have tea and some breakfast, and if you want to join me, awesome! I will always be there. And if you don’t, that’s okay, too.”

Well, they started coming down the stairs! It became this really sweet time. Now, we’ve gotten way out of the habit with summer. We’ve got to re-energize our routines. As we’re recording this, it’s summer. We haven’t yet gotten back into the school routines. But it was that idea of, “It doesn’t matter what the day holds, I’m going to be there with my Bible open, and it would bring me great joy if you were there with me.”

It wasn’t forced, but it worked. And it became a really precious time.

Joy: Erin talked earlier about standing on the shoulders of men—upon their father, upon their father. Boy, the Word is rich in that, which I love. Who do you see in your life, in the boys of your life, who do you see them standing on the shoulders of? Or maybe even your husband, or maybe your father, or a man in your life. Who was it that spoke affirmation? Who was it that spoke the Lord and the delight of His Word? Who made an influence or who is making an influence currently?

Robert Wolgemuth: This is Robert Wolgemuth. The Lord gave us girls, but I got a great idea from Henry Blackaby who had sons and one daughter. My late wife and I used to say at dinner time, which is a very important time, we’d say to the girls at the end of the day, during dinner, “What was your happiest thing today?” And then, “What was your saddest thing today?”

I told Henry Blackaby this, and he said, “Well, this is what we did. We would say to our children over dinner, ‘What did the Lord say to you today?’ That sounds maybe a little outrageous, but doing it every dinner, the kids, the sons especially would look for God’s sightings during the day so they would have something to report at dinner.”

And when he told me that, I thought, That is a great idea!

So, dinner time is really important. It’s sacred. And, because we had girls, it was always silliness. So Daddy was always saying, “Okay, girls, calm down.” Well, maybe boys are silly, too. But this is a fun assignment: “What did the Lord say to you? What did you hear God say to you?” That might be a good idea for some people.

Erin: Love it!

Diana: Hi, I’m Diana. When you were talking about standing on the shoulders of men in generations before, our son graduated high school, and he was valedictorian. So we kind of had a talk with him about, “You will be giving a speech in front of a couple thousand people. Take this opportunity to make it important.”

And so he talked about the three men in his life that had influence. And our son may not always talk about that, and sometimes you think they’re not getting it, but to see him on stage saying that he learned from one of his grandfathers love for family. That grandpa would travel all over the U.S. to watch his grandkids play sports, or whatever. From another grandfather he learned how to love other people and reach them through God’s Word. And he learned hard work from his dad.

And growing up through eighteen, nineteen years, you don’t always know if they’re grabbing on to that from other generations. But it was a joy to see that they actually are picking it up. It’s caught, not taught.

Erin: I’m tearing up hearing that story. I can’t imagine what it was like for you that day.

Diana: He said sometimes we see the influence that our little boys have, our growing-up boys, but sometimes it’s not verbally spoken until they get to early adulthood or later in life.

Joy: Boy, I have learned to listen to my husband about my grandson. In raising our sons, I don’t always understand the mind: what are you thinking? What are you capturing? Are you capturing any of this? So if you want to share that.

Erin: Well, if you’ve met one boy, you’ve met one boy. They’re not all the same. And we have one boy in particular that is very internal in his processing. We have to really draw him out. He’s very, very, very smart, and he’s very content just to watch and listen. So, I can’t gauge his growth or his maturing based on what he says or doesn’t say because it’s just not the boy he is. But he’s certainly observing it, and I can see it in the quality of his life and the choices that he makes.

He’s the first one downstairs in the morning eager to have his Bible open. So, our boys are all individual, made individually by God. There’s no conveyor belt of boys in heaven. We’ve got to press into their uniqueness, I think.

Charissa: I’m Charissa, and a couple years ago my husband and I were seeking a Bible study for our boys. And so we put together a group of friends and some gentlemen who just poured into them. That has stopped because the one gentleman who was leading it got a new job and was not available at that time, but he still, once a month, checks in with my son on different aspects of things that came out of that Bible study time.

I love to see that generation pouring into them. Now my boys are getting to the age where they’re starting to look around at younger boys in the church and saying, “You know what? This person I should really start spending some time with them just like a big brother type of thing.” It’s fun to see that start passing down.

Erin: Yes. My encouragement to parents is to pick a church with a vibrant Word-centered youth group. Actually, my story of coming to Christ is because there was some instability in my family. Because my parents divorced, we were in and out of church. My mom married a really godly man named Steve. I was thirteen at the time. Steve said, “The kids need to be in church.” And Steve did his homework, and he found the church in our area with the most vibrant Word-centered youth group. And he said, “We’re going to church.”

The first Sunday that we were in church, the youth pastor came up to my sister and I and said, “We’re going on a trip tomorrow. Do you guys want to go?” 

And we were, like, “Okay.”

And that’s where we both gave our lives to Jesus. Our lives were so formed by the youth group of that church. And I know God can use . . . There’s lots of churches that don’t have a big youth group, and there’s churches that don’t have a youth group at all. But our kids have really flourished in being back at that same church where I came to Christ and being in a student ministry.

They have fifth quarters and water balloon fights and all kinds of crazy stuff, too. But they’re getting the Word, and that’s just so essential for their spiritual formation.

So, maybe it doesn’t have to be a youth group, but I would say, “Make sure you are at a church where your kids can get the Word.”

Hannah: This is Hannah. I have noticed the pastors of our church having a huge impact on my husband, in particular in his new role as a father. There’s one pastor who he and his wife just had their first baby two months ago. So for the first 2 years of our parenting journey, they weren’t even parents, and that pastor spoke so much truth into my husband’s heart. He just loved on us.

I think some of the listeners of this podcast maybe are going, “I’m not a parent, so I don’t have a lot of influence here.” And when you’re speaking the truths of the Word, those are the truths of the Word. It doesn't matter if you're a parent or not, you have a role to play in the lives of the children in your church. I see that in my pastor.

Erin: Yes. Ezra, our youngest one, we were hanging out with a bunch of our church friends. All of our families were together recently. Ezra went up to Ben, who’s a friend of ours, a follower of Jesus, and Ezra said to Ben, “You’re like one of my daddies. I have lots of daddies.”

Not to insult his true daddy at all, but from Ezra’s perspective, these are men that are in his life a lot, that sometimes discipline him, but enjoy him. And from his little four-year-old-at-the-time perspective, it was like, “I’m surrounded by daddies. These are men who invest in me.”

It made Ben’s day, and I’ve heard him tell that story several times since. But that’s the idea, that the men in your church, the men who love Jesus are frequently in your child’s life because we’re frequently in each other’s lives. Our lives are woven together in the church, or ought to be. That does have a profound impact.

Woman: I was going to say I’m also thankful. I’m watching my husband just be a wonderful father. And we both had wonderful parents who raised us. But all four of our parents were cycle breakers in their own family.

His parents were the first ones saved out of their families. My mom was saved at the same time as her mom, and they were the first ones of their family. My grandma was a wonderful, godly woman, but she wasn’t at the beginning of my mom’s childhood. And then my dad’s family is very, kind of nominally Christian. But he’s fairly apathetic in just going to church when they have to. My dad really just made sure we were in church and heard the Word.

So I think my husband and I have had an easier time stepping into this role of raising boys because of the work of the generation before us that really. It wasn’t so easy for them, but I’m thankful they followed the Lord.

Erin: That’s so good. Joy, you were talking about the conviction. I don’t know that any Christian would say, “Yes, I’m in the Word as much as I should be, and I delight in it as much as I want to.” There’s always room for growth there.

But if this episode brings conviction, the answer is not heaping mom guilt. The answer is realizing God, in His mercy, has exposed that this really is a big deal, and that there is time for you to invite Him to grow your own delight for God’s Word, to create new patterns.

Even if the kids are grown, even if you’re in grandparenting, even if you don’t have any kids that live with you, the call is the same that we are connected to each other and we’re interdependent. We need each other. Our lives are intertwined with each other. Our love for God’s Word is paramount to that.

So, if you’re feeling conviction, I would say: “Great! Respond to that in obedience.”

Joy: Or if you’re feeling guilt, and maybe even guilt from circumstance, like, if you’re married to a man who is not in the Word or not even a believer. It seems like this is so difficult—and it is difficult. I want to affirm that, yes, it is difficult. However, it also is a glorious opportunity to see the hand of God move, and a glorious opportunity to distinguish between the light and the dark, between the sin and walking in obedience.

And that’s everything, because it's like my little Isaiah, who’s nine and just loves baseball. He looks at pro players, professional baseball players, and he’s just enamored. He loves going to the games or anything. But what’s a wonderful opportunity is when you watch a game with him or take him to a game, and you watch that player’s behavior. What a great opportunity to discuss, “How did that affect others? Was it godly? What does that look like? Do you want to be like that?”

Erin: Well, I thank God for Christian athletes because I think most boys love sports and love athletics. My boys do. They’ll notice when one writes a Bible verse on his basketball shoe or has it tattooed on his arm or responds to a bad call in a way that is righteous versus the one who slams the ball down on the court, or wherever it is.

So, yes, God gives us those examples. And you’re right, they’re great conversation starters.

Diana: I’m Diana. About teaching kids God’s Word, I loved what you read in Deuteronomy 6:4–9. Our son was one who loved to debate. He was one who argued, and he was always right. He would love to fight with his sister in the car, in the kitchen, it didn’t matter where it was.

And the only thing that could change that boy’s heart was God’s Word. It didn’t matter my wisdom, my knowledge, my logic I was passing to him. So I started putting verses, a lot in Proverbs, like what you mentioned, about the tongue. I would put them on 3 x 5 cards and tape them to my dashboard, in the bathroom on the mirror, in the hallway (with the white goop stuff on the back) because it didn’t matter what I said. It didn’t matter to him. But what did change and touch his heart was God’s Word.

And so, that was a simple way to bring that into their lives.

Erin: That’s so good. I also have a debater or two. I have two things I always feel the freedom to say, which is: I don’t know, and, I’ll get back to you.

I’m glad that my sons ask hard questions, and some of them do. Many of them are too hard for me. But I will say, “I don’t know. I’ll get back to you.” And then when I don’t come back to them with my opinion, I come back to them with the Word of God. That doesn’t mean it squashes the debate; that’s not necessarily the goal. I want to raise thinking children. But that’s been true in some decisions.

One of our sons really wanted a cell phone before he was ready. I would send him some verses, and I would say, “If you can come back to me with some verses—not just your thoughts, not just what your friends are doing—but because we make our decisions based on God’s Word. If you can come back at me with some verses that can counter these, let’s talk about.”

Well, of course, he could not, so he didn’t get the cell phone. And that wasn’t me weaponizing Scripture. I hope I presented it graciously and in the quest for wisdom. But it was like, “This is where we go. We can’t trust our own hearts. We can’t trust our own desires. We can’t trust even what our friends say. This is where we go when we have a question or desire.”

Joy: This might sound crazy, but the goal of parenting boys in light of the gospel isn’t necessarily to raise good boys. Erin will explain more on the next episode of The Deep Well.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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