What I'm Learning Reading Devotionals With My Son

My Son Is Teaching Me Things I Didn't Plan to Learn

When I started doing bedtime devotionals with my boys, I had a fairly clear picture of the transaction: I would read, they would listen, I would ask a question, they would answer, we'd all be better for it. I was the dad. I was leading. That's how it goes.

That is not how it went.

My older son is 7. And at least twice a week, he says something at bedtime that I don't have a good answer for. Not because the question is theologically complex — it usually isn't. It's because the question is honest in a way that I've trained myself not to be, and hearing it at 8:30 p.m. in a dark room does something to me that I didn't sign up for.

I'm not complaining. I'm saying the devotional is working on me in ways I didn't expect. And a lot of what I'm learning, I'm learning from him.

The First Series I Ever Wrote Was About Him

When my youngest was born and my older son had to figure out how to be a big brother, I didn't have anything to read with him about it. He was 5. He was confused and excited and sometimes angry about this small person who had changed everything. I wanted to address it directly — not with a lecture, just a conversation in the dark before sleep that said: what you're feeling is real, and here's what it means, and here's what you can do with it.

I wrote the Big Brother Devotional for him. It was the first series I built, and I wrote it because I needed it. Seven days of navigating what it means to be the older one — to carry responsibility, to model something for someone who's watching you constantly, to find the honor in a role you didn't choose.

He was 5 when we read it. He is 7 now. And I'm still thinking about things he said during that week.

One night he told me he was worried about being a bad example. Not in those words — he's 5, he didn't say "bad example." He said he was scared his brother was going to copy the wrong things. I just sat there. Because that is exactly the thing I think about as a dad, except I never said it out loud to anyone. My 5-year-old named it first.

The Missions Became Our Thing

Every devotional in the app ends with a mission — one specific thing your kid carries into the next day. Not a rule. Not a rule dressed up like a challenge. An actual thing to do, one time, that connects the theme of the night to a real moment in a real day.

We do the missions seriously. I don't let it slide into "oh, try to be kind today" territory. We name it. We're specific. And then — this part happened organically, it wasn't planned — I started calling him before school.

Not every day. But when I can. "Hey buddy, remember your mission today." That's it. Sometimes he remembers without prompting. Sometimes he forgot and the call puts it back in his head. But either way, there's this thread between us that runs through his day — something we made together the night before that he's carrying out there without me.

That phone call is four seconds long and it is some of the most important four seconds I spend.

Things He Said That I Wasn't Ready For

There was a night, during the You Are My Son series, when I read the day's passage about how God sees him — not what he does, just who he is — and asked him what he thought that meant. He was quiet for longer than usual. And then he said: "Does God still see me the same when I'm mean to my brother?"

I didn't have the quick answer. I had the right answer — yes, that's kind of the whole point — but I didn't have it ready in the way you have quick answers ready. I had to actually think about it. And sitting with my son in the dark while he waited for me to say something real was one of the most clarifying moments I've had as a dad.

He's teaching me to slow down. To not have a practiced answer for everything. To let there be silence that means something instead of filling it with whatever sounds competent.

I didn't expect the devotional to do that. I thought it would be a transmission — faith going from me to him. It's actually a conversation, and the conversation moves in both directions.

What I've Learned About How He's Wired

Two years of bedtime conversations, most of them with a devotional as the structure, and I know my older son in ways I'm not sure I would otherwise. Not his preferences — what food he likes, what shows he watches. His interior. What he worries about. What he's proud of. What he's afraid other people think about him.

Kids don't usually offer that information in the daylight, over dinner, in the middle of things. They offer it when the lights are low and they're already drifting a little, when there's something real to talk about and someone willing to sit still long enough to hear it.

The devotional gives us the something real. I bring the willingness to sit still. What he brings is everything else — and it keeps being more than I expected.

If you're doing this and you're not sure it's working, read what happens when you add your own track to the mix. The kid's devotional is one thing. But when you're doing your own work alongside them, you show up differently — and they feel it even if they can't name it.

It Hasn't All Been Easy

There are nights where he doesn't want to. Nights where the devotional is clearly not landing and I'm just running through it because we said we were going to. There are nights I'm too tired to ask the follow-up question and I just wrap it up and turn off the light.

There was a period — a few weeks, maybe more — where the consistency broke down. I'd skip nights. I'd get to bedtime and just not have the energy for anything beyond the goodnight and the light switch. The habit wasn't gone but it wasn't strong either.

What I found, in those stretches, is that getting back to it wasn't hard once I decided to. That's the thing about a structure that's built right — it doesn't require you to rebuild it every time you fall off. You just pick up where you are. Not from the beginning, not with a bunch of guilt about what you missed. Just: alright, tonight we're back.

Read the hardest thing I read this year if you want to know what the work actually feels like when it's asking everything. That's the other side of what I'm learning.