Deep Doctrine

I was thinking some more about my last post as I was rocking Caleb to sleep yesterday, and thought to myself that I sometimes don't feel like I'm at the point yet where I'm teaching my children any great scriptural truths or deep doctrines - or even simple docrtrines. Right now our scripture study consists of pulling a picture out of the Gospel Art Kit and telling Ethan the corresponding story, then singing a song from the Children's Songbook.

But almost as quickly as the thought came, I knew it was wrong. Right now, in their infancy, I am teaching them some of the deepest realities of the Gospel that will shape their lives in ways I can't now know. They are now learning things like love, trust, and faith from our daily interactions. Granted, they don't understand now how to love, trust, and have faith in God, but their relationship with John and me is going to have a huge impact on how they view God later in life. If they feel unconditional love from us, it will be easier to believe that He loves them unconditionally. If we demonstrate Christlike attributes in our dealings with them--things like patience, kindness, longsuffering, and sacrifice--they will have a better understanding of how Christ feels for them and how they can be like Him. And if we fail in those things (which, to some extent, we most certainly will, but on the whole we hope we won't), it may make it more difficult for them. So although they are not profound in the hard-to-understand sense, the things we are teaching them are profound in the sense that they are deep and far-reaching in shaping spirituality.

And I think that it is easier to tell myself the erroneous thought that what I am teaching now is somehow less important than what I'll have to teach them in the future, because it implies that the teaching only consists of what I tell them. It's a bit weightier when I remember that what I do and what I am are going to have a much greater impact on them. And being is a lot more demanding than telling =)