Spending personal time with God is just as important for children as it is for you! God wants to spend time with all of His children. Sadly, many kids have no idea how to have that devotional time. Today I have several things you can do to help them start establishing a lifetime of relationship with God.

First, help kids decide on their own special quiet PLACE to have their time alone with God.​

When I was a young child, I shared a bedroom and our house was busy with a lot of people, so my special place was in a corner behind a big chair! It might not seem that special, but it was special to me! Even if a child has their own room, setting up in a specific place is good for focus. In good weather she might have place outside. Having a designated place helps make devotions purposeful and special.

A fun song you can use to start everyone off with their devotions in the morning can be found below:

I like how the song affirms that children have the Holy Spirit too. Try playing this song every morning to let everyone in the house know it’s time to head to their special place for personal devotions.

Next, WHAT do they need for their quiet time?​

You can provide kids with inexpensive devotional books. Child Evangelism Fellowship® offers both The Wonder Devotional books for older children and Every Day with God devotional books for younger children. Both can be found at cefpress.com.

The first Every Day with God devotional book teaches about creation, the person of God, and goes through Moses. The next four are chronological about the life of Jesus, and the sixth and final one goes through the book of Acts. These books help children to learn to go through the Bible systematically, so they are familiar with all of God’s Word, rather than just jumping around with no direction. The Wonder Devotional Books are like systematic theology for older children, covering many discipleship topics.

Next, you want a child to know HOW to have a quiet time.​

You can provide a key word or picture outline for how to have their quiet time with the essentials of opening prayer, reading, writing, and closing prayer.

Teach her to start by praying—confessing sins, thanking God for what He has done for her, asking God to help her to understand what she will read in the Bible, and asking Him for help to obey what it says.

Then, read a short passage in the Bible and spend time thinking about what the passage says, means, and—most importantly—what God is saying to them through it. The number of verses that a child reads could correlate with their age. But once their comprehension is better, they can read a whole chapter. It’s also good to read a few verses in the Proverbs every day for those great nuggets of wisdom.

It’s good to write something every day about what she learned. Even kids who can’t compose full sentences on their own can copy a few words from the Bible.

Finally, tell kids to end their quiet time by praying again. They can thank God for speaking to them and ask Him to help them obey Him in what they learned. By starting young, saved children who have quiet times can begin building good habits to help them walk with God throughout their entire lives.

Let’s all start the new year out with resolve to enjoy time with God every morning!