At Christmas time last year Katie and I gave two books to our oldest children (Rebecca and Christian). They are the first two of four in the Wingfeather Saga, a series written by Andrew Peterson. I actually had the privilege of meeting Andrew several years ago when I was doing youth minister in East Tennessee. He is an incredible musician and I was excited to learn about these books from Jonathan Taylor Martin of Mosaic.
Unfortunately our kids didn't decide to jump into the books and even after some encouragement to read them. One of them actually began reading the first book and started complaining about the character development with great frustration. I waited to see if the book would be given a chance only to find it back on the shelf where it had sat for a few months. At that point I got my dander up a little bit and decided I was going to read the series and see if I could build a little encouragement and momentum.
Jonathan was absolutely correct in his recommendation and I was thrilled to be reading the series. I quickly finished the first two only to wait on the release of the third (yes now I am waiting on the fourth too, with eager anticipation). As great as the books are, what I noticed was very interesting as I began to drop comments about my enjoyment of Andrew's writing and the story line. Christian began to ask me questions and was amazed that I had finished them so quickly.
He had been dragging his feet to complete the reading I had assigned for the summer (Treasure Island), so I didn't anticipate the response when he picked up the first book and started into it. After about 2 days, maybe 8 chapters in he was coming to me and reporting on his progress in the story and started asking questions about the future of specific characters and trying to make guesses in the outcome of particular circumstances. Never did I give away anything in the story line, but I would drop some hint to cause him to think or just return his question with a raised eyebrow (at least raised to the best of my ability) which would drive him mad with intrigue at the future events for the characters.
He has almost finished the third book in the 4 weeks (Treasure Island took him about 8), and we had an incredible discussion about the characters, their flaws, their likenesses to real people. We discussed the hints of redemption that Andrew brings out through the story and enjoyed a great conversation about the benefits of this in our own lives. It brought a great spiritual lesson home to me.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." My son, Christian, caught the excitement of reading the books after I modeled excitement before him. He started understanding the symbolism and deeper matters of the books when we talked together. This made me realize that the manner in which our children will grasp the Gospel (Good News of Jesus Christ and all that it entails) is for us, as parents, to engage in a walk with Jesus which models the significance of the Gospel. As we are transformed by our friendship with Jesus, by our prayer life with the Father, and by the empowering of the Holy Spirit, our children will see this and most likely model Christ because of the value He holds for us. One day they will possess their own faith, but for now, I sure want to set Christ before them as I imitate Him. That doesn't happen merely by reading a book, but it happens by embracing them in relationship as Christ has embraced us.
