Writing Christian children’s books is a fusing of several passions of mine: my love for God and His Word, my love for writing, and my love for children. I began to experiment with children’s stories about six months before I wrote A King’s Decree and the Brave Three. My first attempts disappointed me, lacking the resonance and meaning that I felt would really contribute to children’s literature. I needed to communicate something that mattered to me, not something trivial. What do I feel compelled to pass on to children?

There is a clear pattern in God’s Word: the parents and members of an older generation make known God and His Word to the younger ones. God exalts His Word above all else, even above His own name. He has gone to great lengths throughout the ages to have His Word written. The tablets given to Moses were “…written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18, ESV).

After giving the children of Israel the law, Moses gave further instruction from God regarding the law, and regarding all that they had seen and heard: “How on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children so’” (Deuteronomy 4:10, ESV). They were taught to reverence God, and to “teach their children so.” God repeats this instruction numerous times throughout the book of Deuteronomy, indicating its importance.

Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs, by God-given revelation, in order to instruct the young men of Israel in the law of the Lord: “The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, Justice, judgment, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion” (Proverbs 1:1-4, NKJV). The first key to this instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment and equity is revealed in verse 7: “the fear, or reverence, of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” It is of the utmost importance to God that the young ones be taught to reverence Him.

Timothy is an example of a young man who was taught God’s Word and was given an example of believing by his mother, Lois and his grandmother, Eunice. The apostle Paul also calls him his “own son in the faith” (I Timothy 1:2, KJV) because though they were not literally related, Paul had brought him up in God’s Word.

In the Bible, God has made it clear by example and by straightforward instruction that He and His Word are to be reverenced, and that this reverence is to be taught to the younger ones. This is what I feel compelled to pass on. If children are to know Him and reverence Him, they must know and reverence His Word.

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