As we worked our way through a story about Pop, Jim and Stan jumping off a log into the water, he yawned at least a half-dozen times, fidgeted in his seat even more, and had difficulty keeping focused on the words rather than the pictures. I did my best to direct him to the pages with patience, listening to him laboriously try to sound out words that he'd sounded out a hundred times before ("j-u-m-p'd, j-u-m-p'd, etc."). He was sounding out and re-sounding out, because he was not listening to himself. And when I would finally interject my interrogative: Judah, what is the word? He would half-heartedly throw out a completely unrelated word.
I started to grow exasperated and told him that we were going to have to take disciplinary measures if his lack of concentration continued (over an hour into the reading, which on good days, takes twenty minutes). But suddenly, it dawned on me (thankfully), that my son needed encouragement, not admonition. And I recalled a pastor at our church recently speaking on Thessalonians 5:14: We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Our pastor had noted that so often, as seasoned believers, we do the opposite: we admonish the fainthearted and weak, and encourage the unruly. Boy, that's what I was about to do this morning. My weak and fainthearted son was having a particularly rough morning. It dawned on me: in my own Bible-reading this morning, I had to keep stopping and praying and asking God to help ME pay attention. So, I'm thankful for the Holy Spirit's ministry of conviction in my life. I had the opportunity to encourage my son before it was too late, and we persevered, finished the reading and played with the ghetto superhero capes I cut out of old sheets.
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