first hand believers

How do we help our kids to make God their own? How do we know that they will make the choice to live for God and not just adopt Him as the God of their parents? Do you remember the story in the Old Testament where the children of Israel crossed the river and God told the leaders to set up stones as a reminder so they could tell the story to future generations? I think this is a big part of it. We have to talk about the things God has done in the past, how He has always been faithful, and how we can trust Him. I think, however, the BIGGEST THING we can do, is to help our kids EXPERIENCE GOD ON THEIR OWN. If they EXPERIENCE God being faithful to THEM, they will be more impacted than if they just heard about what happened to someone else. How can we do that? We have a little book, and we started writing things down--little things, but things that were big to my kids. As they get older, the experiences get bigger. I am hoping that one day, they will look back and know that God can be trusted with their whole life because they have been trusting Him all along. Another way to EXPERIENCE GOD ON THEIR OWN: camp. Camp with their church friends is huge. They experience something on their own and make potentially life-changing decisions. One more: serving others. When our kids serve, they get to see God at work first hand!