Christian Living Archives - The Workout Mama

3 Ways We Glorify God On The Car Ride To School

Between elementary school and preschool drop off last year I started to wonder if I could be making better use of my time in the car with the kids. A few months into the school year we began to implement these 3 things on the 15 minute car ride to the elementary school: singing, catechism, and prayer. With all 4 kids in the car it has become the perfect way to start the day for all us.

SING

We love singing together as a family and singing about God to glorify God is the best way to start our drive to school. Here are a few of our favorite albums that I highly recommend:

Seeds Family Worship: Seeds has many albums that will help your entire family memorize scripture through song! This is a great resource!
Sovereign Grace Music: Another great resource to speak God’s Word into your family via song. We like the albums Walking in the Wise, The Ology, and To Be Like Jesus.
Shai Linne: The album Jesus Kid is our current favorite. The song Gotta Know The Books helped our 6 and 4 year old at the time learn all the books of the bible. If you want to introduce your kids to good and sound theology that will be easy for them to remember and understand start here.

CATECHISM

For reference we are using New City Catechism. Today many churches and Christian organizations publish “statements of faith” that outline their beliefs. But in the past it was expected that documents of this nature would be so biblically rich and carefully crafted that they would be memorized and used for Christian growth and training. They were written in the form of questions and answers, and were called catechisms.

Using this question and answer method the catechisms explains clearly what the gospel is, but also lays out the building blocks on which the gospel is based, such as the biblical doctrines of God, of human nature, and of sin. It also helps to address false beliefs of our culture so that believers can reflect the likeness of Christ.

You can download the New City Catechism app on your phone. We love this app because it is free and we also have easy access to the songs that make it super easy to memorize each question/answer. There are 52 questions and every week we do a new question. Our kids enjoy the songs and it is amazing to see how much they are learning. We also have it in book format as well which can be purchased HERE.

We usually will review a previous question that the kids have already learned and memorized and also the current question we are working on for the week. I get just as much, if not more, out of learning these alongside my kiddos.

PRAY

About 5 minutes before we arrive at school we start praying for the day. We will pray blessings over our children and their school as well as the staff. We also ask each off our school aged children to pick a friend in their class that we can also pray over. By the end of school year each child in class will have been prayed over by our family multiple times. Our morning car ride concludes with praying that our kids find a way to encourage that person during the day.

These are super simple and easy ways we have found to place the gospel message in front of our kids. Plus when they are in the car they are strapped in and can’t go anywhere ;). If you have children I hope your family has a blessed, safe, and happy school year.

Broken Tracks

In the bedroom broken train tracks scatter the floor. My two year olds are happily playing with the remaining intact tracts that lead onto the well worn carpet.

I sit down on the floor with them in the mess they have created. My mind starts to contemplate how I can arrange the tracks to enhance their play. A bridge here, a tunnel there, yes that will be perfect. They will love it.

Except they don’t. “No mama, no fix it”. The little voice continues on. Lamenting as I try to explain that what I am doing is going to be better. So much better.

It is as if each track I lay brings an extra agony of grief to his little heart. Slowly the track starts to come together amongst the whining and grumbling. It is one of my better designs. Slowly the grumbling begins to fade and a smile starts to form on their little faces. They see the broken tracks come together to form something new, something better.

They start working alongside me. Their excitement now evident as they can see what we are creating together. Squeals of laughter and shouts of joy echo out into the hallway as we watch the train go from the top of the hill to the bottom and up and over the bridge.

I sit back and watch. My breath catches for a moment. Here in my children’s bedroom I see just how similar I am to my toddlers. I often grumble or become anxious when life is hard and painful. Not seeing how the Holy Spirit is wanting to work in me. Wanting to use the struggle to grow me into something and someone who is more like Christ. Fixing the broken tracks for my good and for his glory.