Teachers teach. They don't confuse. Or at least they don't intentionally try to.

Before working in my current office job, I was a fifth grade teacher for seven years.

I loved it.

And my goal with my kids, over those years, was to increase their knowledge, teach them important concepts, help them to grow into mature young people (and a ton of other things). I never taught anything without those goals in mind.

This is our second week looking at some of Jesus' parables. And what really was standing out to me this week was the truth that Jesus was teaching these parables to people who would 'see and not see.' They would 'hear and not hear.'

He even gets on to the disciples when they ask him about the meaning of some of the parables. But this is not Jesus being mean.

Our starting point for understanding this is that it's grace from God that we would understand anything about the gospel.

I'm reminded that learning and understanding the gospel, seeing it as beautiful, is such a spiritual matter. The people Jesus tried to teach heard the stories but they didn't 'hear' or 'see' anything.

So what about us? What do we need as we try and bring our families around the Word this week? We need the help of the Spirit.

In my home we don't typically start our family devo time by praying for God to help us understand and see what's in the text, but I think this week we will try to start there. Our hope as Christian parents is that our children hear and our children see. This will not happen without the work of the Spirit.

We are praying for you, as a family, this week. Please us know if we can help any way. Grace and Peace.