⁹How can young people keep their way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
¹⁰With my whole heart I seek you;
do not let me stray from your commandments.
¹¹I treasure your word in my heart,
so that I may not sin against you.
¹²Blessed are you, O Lord;
teach me your statutes.
¹³With my lips I declare
all the ordinances of your mouth.
¹⁴I delight in the way of your decrees
as much as in all riches.
¹⁵I will meditate on your precepts,
and fix my eyes on your ways.
¹⁶I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.

My husband and I have a daughter, Lorelei, who is four years old and at the stage where she asks many great questions and has the ability to have some deeper conversations (deeper than just “please eat three more bites of your beans”). She is asking questions about God, creation, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. She is a singer, and in the car she makes up songs about “loving the Lord with my WHHHOLE heart” and “Jesus dying on the cross.”

There are times that are challenging, as we help her to sort through truth that makes sense in her growing brain and heart. She recently learned the Lord’s Prayer and really enjoys saying it together as a family. We discuss what sins are, what it means that we want God’s kingdom to come and his will be done, why we pray for bread, and what temptation is. We encourage her to treasure God’s Word in her heart. We pray together, sing together, and talk about who God is together. We love these conversations with our daughter, and we pray God uses them to plant his Word deep in her heart, so that she may always find delight in his Word.

Conversations with a child remind us how God walks alongside each one of us, patiently providing his love and assurance when we dwell on his riches and meditate on his precepts. Lent is a time when we slow down, sometimes giving things up or taking on a spiritual practice in order to provide intentional space to notice the moving of the Holy Spirit. What questions are you asking? What practices are you putting in place to allow for God’s purity to flow into your life? Spend time today finding delight in God’s Word.

Prayer: Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

Chelsea Lampen, along with her husband, Jeff, and their two children, Lorelei and Caspian, serve as RCA missionaries in Lupeni, Romania. Chelsea walks alongside international students as they grow in depth and knowledge of how Christ is working in Eastern Europe.