My work is with teenagers, and like a lot of other men in the ministry, I am passionate about my work. But as a teenage counselor and as a camp director, I know how wild the world is as soon as teens walk out the front door and get on the school bus. Knowing that my kids were going to be raised in that world, I realized the only defense I had against that was to get God’s Word ingrained into their hearts so they could win the battle against the enemy.

As a father, I know God called me first to love my wife like Christ loves the church. Second only to that, God tells me in Deuteronomy 6 that I am to build His Word into my children on a daily basis.

God’s Word needs to be what kids see and hear when they look at their parents — and it needs to be ingrained in the hearts of moms and dads.

At the beginning of each day, I had a devotion with my kids before they went to school. That gave them a foundation for the day so they could fight the temptations and pressures they would encounter. Morning devotions weren’t a tranquil time gathered around the dining room table with soft hymns playing in the background. It was more like: “Hey, it’s breakfast time! That means devotions!”

But devotions didn’t stop there. Every night, I took 10 or 15 minutes to lie beside each of my four kids to talk about their day. Then I would pray with them individually, and I would take one Bible verse and put it in their hearts so they could sleep with God’s Word being the last word they heard. Even if we had guests in our home, I would let them know that I would be back in 40 minutes after I made my rounds with the kids.

Our household wasn’t perfect. We had scars on the walls of our home, just like everybody else. I didn’t always do the job of filling God-size shoes. But nothing took priority over spending time with my kids in God’s Word. Now my daughter says that the Holy Spirit brings specific verses to her mind when she’s tempted to gossip with her friends. My son now says that the Word gives him strength to resist sexual temptations and to avoid putting himself in compromising situations.

Most families today live at a hectic pace. Both spouses may be working to barely make ends meet. When you add long hours, rebellious kids and tension in the marriage, parents can feel too drained to give of themselves. When I came into my marriage with my bride 25 years ago, having been abandoned by my first wife, I was a broken man. I felt like an utter failure as a man and as a husband. Debbie Jo and I struggled. We are two different people coming from two different backgrounds. She didn’t have a dad, and she grew up in a tough home.

We bickered and fought, and we just didn’t get along. Our kids went through brokenness that would take too long to describe. We’ve got scars on our knees and on our hearts. But our home has become a household of friendship because we started to take the time to give God’s Word priority and feed our children spiritually.

— Joe White

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)