Deuteronomy 11:19 – “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (HCSB)

My husband is an avid sports fan. Me not so much. My favorite sports were whatever my husband and son were playing at the time, and as hard as I tried to care, my interest was limited to their personal time on the field. Occasionally, my husband will share some sports trivia – news, I meant news — with me. I listen because what he is saying is important to him. One day at a church function we were divided into groups to play a game matching sports teams to their team names. I was flying through the answers, and our group finished in record time. One of our group members thought my speed was the result of invented names and quit over Nittany Lions (Penn State by the way). Another of my teammates was amazed and wondered how I knew them all. My answer was “My husband talks about sports all the time.” In Deuteronomy 11:19 God says to talk to your children about Him all the time. Talk to them with focused Bible and prayer time, with casual conversation, with bedtime prayers, with daytime conversations, with the way you live. God wants us to be interested in Him, to know His Word, to call on Him, to live a life that shows Him to others. If you do these things, your children will listen. They will listen because they know it is important to you. They will listen because you live what you say. They will listen because they will see God at work. Webster’s Dictionary defines sports fan as “an enthusiastic devotee of sports”. I wonder what would happen if Christians became defined as “enthusiastic devotees of God.”