Adam and Who?

A profound thought hit me tonight.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the Deuteronomy 6 principle – how as parents, we are to teach God’s truth to our children as we walk, sit, lie down, and rise. All day we are to informally impart God’s holy Word to them. Relating His truth to our children should be as natural as breathing.

As a teacher, I love this because I know that children learn best as they do life, not as they sit and listen to a lesson (though there is certainly a time and a place for that as well). And so I have been praying…for myself, to have the wisdom to teach all day every day…for Claire, to love the Word of God from an early age and to have ears to hear and to cultivate a receptive heart.

Tonight I sat down and thought about the story of redemption. If I am to teach my daughter the treasure of God’s Word, I need to have that truth written on my heart so that it flows off my tongue almost without effort (for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks). So starting in Genesis, I set out to jot down a very rough outline of the stories and characters that fill the chronicle of redemption. I got as far as Creation…Adam and Eve…and then I stopped.

Once again, I was struck in the face with something terribly obvious:

Claire doesn’t know who Adam and Eve are.

Yes, I am a college graduate, and in fact, I even have a master’s degree. But sometimes you just don’t stop and think about the most obvious, simple truths. And I have never stopped to consider that Claire has zero concept of God, sin, salvation. And she has never heard of Adam and Eve.

It’s not that I haven’t thought about the fact that I need to teach her these things, but I think I have always taken for granted the background knowledge that we all have on which to build. When I taught second grade, I showed kids how to add and subtract. But I didn’t have to teach them what numbers were. They already knew that.

It blows my mind that Claire is basically a “blank slate” – not when it comes to morality, because yes, even my little sunshine is a depraved sinner – but in regard to knowledge of the truth. And this also brings me to my knees. It makes me thankful for my parents, because I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Jesus was or what He did for me. But somewhere along the line, they must have told me that for the first time. I am floored when I think of the weight of responsibility that I have to know the Scripture accurately and to relate it to my child on her level.

I am begging God to remind me of the truth I already know, and to teach me more. I want to have all His treasures stored up in my heart so that I can teach my children His ways. But I also realize that my motivation for learning cannot be just to benefit my children, because what will happen when they eventually grow up and leave home? No, my desire to learn must be driven by a hunger for God to reveal Himself to me, to make His presence known, to teach me and to change my heart.

So it makes perfect sense that in Deuteronomy 6, immediately preceding the counsel to parents to teach God’s commandments diligently to their children, rests this command: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

Get ready, Claire. We are about to set off on a grand adventure. And it begins with the story of creation, and with two people named Adam and Eve…