Dr Bruce Ware has been a wonderful teacher of mine. Not that I've met the man, or even sat in any of his classes, but I've listened to him teach a semester's worth of lessons on systematic theology by downloading his lectures from BiblicalTraining.org. I learnt so much about God and my deepened understanding caused me to love God all the more and it brought much joy to my life.
I started to ponder how I could teach my children these same truths about God. And God himself helped me out with this challenge. The other day I was browsing at the Campus Crusade Media store and I thought I saw a book on the shelf that was entitled, "Big Truths for Young Hearts". Later, I saw the same book mentioned on Crossway's blog and I was excited to learn it was written by Bruce Ware and the subject was on teaching kids about the big truths of God, the same things I had learnt from his seminary lectures. I was estatic.
So off I went, back to the store, only to find out that the store did not carry the book. What was stranger was that it wasn't listed on the store's computer system. The odd thing was I remembered where I had seen it and even remembered what the cover looked like. I called another Christian bookstore that I frequented, and they didn't have it either. Back home, I checked on Crossway's site and found out it had not been released yet. (It's due in mid-June 2009). I knew then that God was leading me to it and I was excited once more when I discovered that Crossway gave PDF versions of their books if you bought the physical copies from their website. I ordered without hesitation and they sent me the PDF copy while the physical one will ship later in June.
I wasted no time in sharing these wonderful truths with my children. Dr Ware has written the book in a simple, conversational manner that I can simply read it out to my kids. I added explanations or illustrations (that I heard him use in his lectures!) when needed. My kids have been engaged and the material has prompted them to ask meaningful questions. For example, tonight my youngest asked, "If God doesn't need us to be happy, why did he make us?" That's a profound question.
My plan is to spend each evening at bedtime, reading through a section of the book and getting my kids to learn about their great and wonderful God from a very godly man who managed to distill his incredible knowledge of God into words that even a young child can understand. The book is a godsend. Literally.
See the book on The Book Depository or Amazon.com.
