Helping Kids Hear from God

Hint: think Egg Hunt, not Treasure Hunt

Mar 4, 2022

Hi there!

Today we’re talking about helping kids hear God’s voice, which can be challenging for kids insofar as they are concrete. On the other hand, kids often have a great capacity to notice God, so long as we adults don’t get in their way.

YOU ASKED: How do you teach children how to hear/discern the voice of God? I know what that looks like for myself, but I also see how my girls are so very different.

First off, I want to affirm your instinct that who your daughters are should shape how they learn to do this. Some things to share with kids about experiencing God include:

It could happen anywhere, any time, through anything. God won’t just speak in one way you have to hunt for. God will speak in many ways you get to notice or discover.
It takes both time and practice, and you might experience God speaking with words, pictures, or emotions.
It can feel strange to be listening for God when you aren’t literally listening. How might we know it’s God if we don’t hear a voice?

A couple of weeks ago a group of kids and I explored the story of Moses and the burning bush. When I asked if they had experienced God with them, several nodded right away, and one shared how they felt full and warm inside doing an activity they loved. Full and warm is not a voice, but it’s real.

Hearing God’s voice, then, is less like a treasure hunt, where you have to follow a map precisely, taking the one right route to find the one hidden treasure. It’s more like an Easter Egg hunt, where lots of eggs are out there and you find them all around.

So help kids hunt! Here are 3 practices you might try:

A mini Leccio Divina. Invite them to lie down comfy, read 1-3 Bible verses to them slowly, and repeat the reading 2-4 times. Remind them it’s OK if they don’t feel like they hear from God.
Breath prayers. Kids love that these are easy to say any time, and that the words can be changed to match what’s important in their lives in the moment.
Put on a worship song and draw. At the end, ask: What did you think or feel as we did that?

YOUR KID ASKED: Why did God talk to the people in the Bible but doesn’t talk now? And what was God’s voice like?

Kids commonly wonder about the difference between how we hear from God now compared to how the stories of the Bible are narrated. With a question like this, start with open-ended exploration, such as:

Yeah, I wonder what it was like when God talked in those stories! It might have been a voice, like how you hear me. In movies they often make God’s voice a low, deep man’s voice. But maybe it wasn’t? Then stop, and let them respond.

To the heart of their question, focus on how God still speaks, and does so in many ways:

Even if they got to hear a voice and we don’t, God does still speak today. Sometimes God gives us words or pictures inside our minds. Sometimes God speaks through another person who loves God. And God speaks through the Bible, too. Have you ever had a sense of God speaking to you?

Then, if you can, tell them a story of a time you sensed that God was speaking to you, even if you felt (or still feel) unsure or clumsy at the practice of listening. Your faith stories matter tremendously for your child, not because they are super-spiritual, but because they show you as a regular person who is following Jesus.

BIBLE STORY BREAKDOWN: Moses and the Burning Bush - Exodus 3: God is with us

For younger and sensitive kids, this story can serve as the beginning of the Exodus, rather than Pharaoh’s decree to kill Hebrew babies, which should be saved until they are older.
Backdrop: At the time, people thought that a god was powerful in their own nation, but nowhere else. In other words, God’s people, the Israelites, would have thought they were stuck, because who could possibly save them from the powerful gods of Egypt?
Covenant: God “remembers their covenant” in this passage. For kids, I call a covenant a super-promise–God will never break it, no matter what.
This is when God names Themself: I AM. Every god had a name. It’s how you knew not just what they were called, but what they were like. In Hebrew, the name carries a sense of “wherever you are, I will be” or “always there”--even in Egypt, because I AM is not only present in one spot, but over all the earth. And I AM is powerful, not just at this bush, but in the territory of the Egyptian gods.

5 prompts to help kids respond:

In this story, God appeared in a burning bush. At other times in the Bible God appears in a pillar of fire, a pillar of cloud, a dove. If you could pick a way for God to appear, what would you pick?
God promises Moses that God will be with him. God’s own special name, Yahweh, also means I’ll be there. Let’s name some places we go. Is God there? Is that easy or hard for you to trust? Why?
Can you think of a time when it felt like God was with you? What happened?Can you think of a time when it felt like God wasn’t there? What happened?
Try a breath prayer: Breathe in: You are with me. Breathe out: I am not alone.

Have a question? Did your kid ask a stumper? I’d love to help you think about ways to keep the conversation going, so send it along!

May the God whose very name is nearness remind you that you are never alone. There is nowhere you are headed that takes you outside the realm of God’s power or presence. Walk in peace.