📊 Deuteronomy 6:7 | The Shema

together with

Happy Tuesday, {{first_name| everyone}}!

Today, we’re digging into the ancient prayer our memory verse is part of called The Shema. It’s a beautiful prayer and something worth incorporating into your family rhythms!

If you missed yesterday’s email, you can read it here.

In today’s email…

✉ subscribe here | support our work 👐

You shall _____ them __________ to your children, and shall ____ of them when you sit in your _____, and when you walk by the ___, and when you lie ____, and when you ____.

Deuteronomy 6:7

Our verse doesn’t stand on its own. It grows straight out of some of the most significant words in the Old Testament.

The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, 15:37-41) is the prayer faithful Jews have prayed morning and evening for thousands of years.

It begins like this:

“Hear” is the Hebrew word shema, and it means far more than registering a sound.

It means to listen and respond.

Put another way:

To truly hear God is to obey him.

Then comes the line before our memory verse that sets up the rest of the prayer:

On your heart.

Before your children’s.

Verse 6 comes before verse 7 on purpose. Before God says to teach them, he says to let these words live in you first.

Because you can’t give what you don’t have.

I watched that play out in my own living room recently. A month earlier, I had started memorizing Proverbs 15:1 with my two oldest, including my 5-year old daughter Cali:

We said it over and over. At first they had questions. “What does harsh mean?” “What’s wrath?” It clicked slowly.

Then one afternoon Cali snapped at her two-year-old brother Judah when he tried to join her game.

Without thinking, I said, “Hey Cali, a soft answer turns away…”

“Wrath,” she finished.

“And a harsh word does what?”

“Stirs up anger.”

I watched the tension drain out of her shoulders. She softened, found a way to incorporate Judah in her game, and they were fine for the next hour.

It took me a month to get there, but it gave me a tiny window into what verse 7 can look like in real life.

Through memorization, the word had gotten far enough into me that I could talk of it when we sat in the house.

📖 Read: Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

👂️ Reflect: Before you think about the kids in your life, ask the honest question: are God’s words actually on my heart?

🙏 Pray

Father, I don’t want to hand down a faith I’m only pretending to have. Write your words on my heart first. Make them so much a part of me that they come out naturally, in the ordinary moments, with the people closest to me. Amen.

Click one of the options below to choose your answer. Let’s see how you do…

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Deuteronomy 6:7