What goals do you have for your family in 2016? Do any of your New Year’s resolutions include having daily family devotions?

Like most families, our household of seven is always bustling with activities, projects, and yet another thing to start, finish, prepare for or plan.

Honestly, family devotions has sometimes felt like something else to squeeze into our busy lives… often at the end of a tiring day.

A little over a year ago, I made a commitment (to myself and the Lord) that I would do my best to integrate a consistent, daily devotion time with my five children during our morning school routine.

I won’t say that this has been an easy goal to stick with, or that I’ve never missed a day! However, I am seeing the rewards of this habit in our family’s life, especially as my older children branch out and begin to cultivate a daily devotion time with the Lord on their own.

One of my biggest challenges, aside from battling the busy-ness of life, was finding a resource that really met our family’s needs. I had two main criteria in mind when selecting a family devotion book for our young kids (now ages 12 down to 2 years old):

This resource needed to be

  1. Engaging and relatable (not boring or overly detailed!)
  2. Challenging and inspiring (not “watered down” or babyish)

I started looking for a book that was interesting, fun, and practical, yet completely Biblically sound. It took me a while to put my hands on that kind of resource, but this is what I found:

 

Our 24 Family Ways, by Clay Clarkson.

Our family has used this devotion book in conjunction with our daily homeschool curricula for over a year now, and we absolutely love it.

My kids enjoy the stories, conversation starters, questions and coloring pages, and generally ask for “the 24 family ways” book every day. I find the five-day unit studies and character lessons both practical and spiritually challenging. I love seeing the truths of these daily lessons taking root in my children’s hearts!

If I had to recommend just one family devotion resource, this would be it! Our 24 Family Ways has been a wonderful blessing to our home, and we look forward to it continuing to shape our family culture in the future.

Other devotion books I enjoy and recommend, especially for little ones, include :

While a devotion book can never replace the importance of daily Scripture reading and memorization (and I appreciate my husband for his commitment to leading our family in this area), I am thankful for “tools” like these to help young parents build a strong foundation of Biblical truth in their children’s hearts and minds.

You’ll find these books, and other resources for building your family, at RainbowResource.com!