The Holy Spirit is a prompter.  He nudges, advises, teaches and guides us into the action that God wants. I’ve had experiences recently of God doing this to me.  When I’ve forgotten something, he suddenly reminds me about it.  When I’ve overlooked a matter, he whispers to me that I need to do this or that.  He is amazing!

When we become Christians we have the mind of Christ and so our thought life becomes the battle field of what we do and don’t do, what we say or don’t say.  Our thoughts are very powerful and we need to momentarily submit ourselves to our Maker so that he has greater access to us and can guide us in his ways through the thoughts he gives us. Not every thought comes from God, of course, which is why God put us in families (the church or natural family) to provide the balance.

We now have an enemy (satan or devil) who wants to influence us in our minds.  How we need to put on the whole armour of God as outlined in Ephesians 6 (of the Bible) so that we can be alert to all his schemes.  He is a liar and a thief but he’s no match for or winner or conqueror  over Jesus Christ.

Our children need to be guarded but they also need to learn the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  Their spirits are often more purer than our adult minds and so can be more sensitive to him.  As they look at the beautiful things of God’s creation and simply are awed by the detail of them, God can speak to them in their wonderings and give them nuggets from heaven in their thinking. As they question various aspects of creation, God can teach them of his ways.  The butterfly comes to mind – a creepy crawly caterpillar one minute, then an ugly chrysalis hanging down and looking dead the next and then the terrific, exquisite, extravagant beauty next (perfectly uniform and symmetrical) and amazing to see! Let alone the wondrous dragonfly! The analogy, of course, can be made of us developing as Christians and becoming the beauty God intends us to be, becoming like our Maker.

So let’s study creation in ‘The Creation Series’ with our children and teach them to hear God’s whispers and even notice his power in the very things God has created – the might of the lion, the eagle, the whale, the sheer enormity of the universe – the number of stars alone and far more besides.

We can listen to our children and see how they comment about what God has made and appreciate the wonders around us. Then, as we are thankful, God can prompt us to act and do his bidding.