Austins' first quiet time?

As I think I have shared before, Austin often gets defensive or antagonistic when we try to teach him spiritual things. Not always, but he often will refuse to listen to a Bible story at night or doesn't want to pray. But I know he is listening and picking up on things all the same. Sunday night he was in the bath and kept telling Chris "I don't love God." He says this sometimes when we tell him God loves him ("but I don't love God, He just loves me"). But then after the bath, suddenly Austin bounds out of his room saying "I love God now. I am happy now because I love God." We encouraged him in his newfound love for God...not knowing how long it would last. Sometimes he says he can't love Jesus at night...but he will again in the morning. Funny kid.

So then after he said he loved God, he went in his room. It was time for bedtime stories. But he had gotten one of his Bible story books down and was looking at it on the bed. He didn't want to read stories with me. He said "Mommy, I need to read the Bible so I can be close to God." This is something we tell him when he asks us why we read it. "Mommy, I need to be close to God. So go out please and don't let Bennett in either." So I complied. He sat in there awhile, looking at the stories and sometimes I would hear him describing Daniel and the lions or Jonah and the big fish. After awhile he came out and said he was close to God now. As we were putting him to bed we asked him if he loved God now and he said "Yeah I do. He's fun." I am still smiling as I think about it. I don't know if this will last (tonight he did not want to read a Bible story before bed) but am glad he is "catching " things even if he doesn't respond all that well to actual teaching time. And of course we pray for his heart a lot to grow to love God all the time. Now that I think about it, I need to pray that for myself too!