Our Children's Greatest Need
John & Misty Snyder created Behold Your God: Seeking Him Early, a 26-week children's curriculum that focuses on introducing our children to the God of the Bible and how to know Him according to Scripture. It is based on the material found in Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically and Behold Your God: The Weight of Majesty by Dr. John Snyder.
Behold Your God: Seeking Him Early is coming soon. You can read the introduction to Level 3 below.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:3
above all else, we should want our children to deeply love the God of the Bible.
We want our children to be wise. We want our children to be moral. We want our children’s souls to be safe. But above all else, we should want our children to deeply love the God of the Bible. Of all that we could teach our children, teaching them how they can know and love God surpasses everything else.
We love to introduce little ones to what we enjoy most in the world, things that we find beautiful and exciting. We are eager to take them to the zoo or show them the ocean for the first time. We teach them to catch baseballs and paint pictures because we have found joy in these pastimes. We also labor to fill them with all the knowledge that we believe they need to survive and succeed in this fallen world.
There is nothing that compares to the beauty, joy, and excitement of truly knowing this majestic being who is God.
There is so much that we want them to know! There is so much that they need to know. But there is nothing that compares to the beauty, joy, and excitement of truly knowing this majestic being who is God. And there is nothing more important than knowing Him. Place everything in the world on a set of scales with knowing God on the other side and everything weighs in at nothing and less than nothing.
All the praise for Him that swells in our hearts falls flat when expressed with our tongues. We just don’t have the words. So, we turn to His own words, His perfect Word. There we find a masterpiece painted for us, a revelation of our God.
If we fail to take our children to the Scripture and show them our God, we have failed them utterly.
If we fail to take our children to the Scripture and show them our God, we have failed them utterly. Any attempt to teach them to be wise, good, kind, or honest is empty apart from Him. The Apostle Paul counted everything as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Him (Philippians 3:8). Let’s not introduce our children to man-made rules, platitudes, or religion. Let’s not introduce them to a worldview, an ideal, or a way of life. Let’s not introduce them to a god of our imagination that lives to do our bidding. Let’s introduce our children to the God, and let’s plead with Him for their souls.