Training From our Children

I wonder sometimes if we have it wrong?

I've been sharing over the past month that a parent's job is to "teach and train our children to leave." This idea isn't mine, but it is from the scriptures and I believe it is true. What I think we have wrong is how we train them. Because I am wondering what it is we are creating.

Do we have it right ourselves? Are our adult ways the right ways? Have we discovered the secrets to living according to God? Or are we simply teaching and training our children simply according to the ways we have learned or know whether or not they are right? Are we so much more wise because we are parents, because we are older? Or have we lost something that our children can teach us, especially about faith?

"Who gets the highest rank in God's Kingdom?
For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, 'I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom.'" (Matthew 18:1-4, The Message)

Yes, children can teach us much about faith and life.

• They don't have to know all the details. Although they may ask, "why?" a million times, it's rarely the details or a long explanation they want. Sometimes the answer they need is simply "because!"
• They believe in larger concepts without having to break them down into manageable parts. (think Santa, reindeer, presents, around the world in one night, all the children of the world, little or no chimneys! You get the idea.)
• They giggle at mystery. Perform a magic trick for a child (even if you are bad at like I am) and children will give you a wide eyed look of wonder. They rarely care how it happened, they just want to see the mystery again.
  
• Wonder. To look at the world with wide-eyed wonder is a gift. To say, "Wow!" instead of "why? or how?" is the key.
  

While there is such a thing as growing mature in faith, we have to begin faith like a child. We can't explain it all, understand it all, then accept it. We have to accept it (like a child), grow into it and begin to understand.

We are so smart that Jesus tells us to "become elemental again." We don't have it all right. We too often teach how to grow out of wonder instead of growing into it. We teach children to grow up but usually with more cynicism and sarcasm instead of wonder and faith.

Maybe they need to teach and train us in faith and wonder at the same time we are teaching and training them how to grow up and do adult things?

In fact, I'm sure of it because, "God's kingdom is made up of people like these." (Matthew 19:15, The Message)

Peace ><>
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Where has all the passion gone?

"When the people say the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were all astonished and let everyone know that God was blazingly alive among them." (Matthew 15:31, The Message)

This verse caught me this morning. It hit me right between the eyes. Do you see in it what I see?

They knew that God was blazingly alive among them.

They knew. It doesn't say believe. We already do that. We mostly believe that God is among us and that God is alive. We rarely doubt that. In fact, it's almost so much a given that we don't think much about it usually. But they knew and were letting others know something exciting was happening. It was unusual. It was otherworldly. It had to be God. They defined it right. They just knew and they told others!

Blazingly alive. Although we believe that God is alive, we don't always recognize that life crossing paths with ours. There are several levels of living that we have experienced.

• There is sustained life (i.e. life support) that really isn't living or breathing. It is life but just barely.
  
• There is normal life which many might even consider dull. It is going through the motions of life and not hating it nor loving it. It is just what it is.
  
• There is exciting life where those living in it are discovering new things, adventures, the sweetness that life has to offer.
  
• There is also the blessed life, recognizing not only the presence of God but the work of God in and among life. (This doesn't mean prosperous, worry-free, trouble-free life, but of life where God is visibly working.)

There are surely others we can name but I like the term blazingly alive. It says something of the dynamic action of God, visible not to an individual, but to the community. It's more just a few recognizing what's happening, but the whole community who is witnessing the power and presence of God.

Put it all together and you see a deep passion for God and an excitment over what's happening in the community. So my question, Where has all the passion gone?

The answer unfortunately is simple. We are not witnessing the blazing life of God!

That doesn't mean that God isn't working or isn't doing amazing things among us because God is. But sometimes I'm not sure we are taking full advantage of sharing these things. We are not sharing what God is doing for us. We are not looking for them either.

I have to admit that I am guilty, guilty of not paying attention, guilty of not sharing when they are revealed, guilty of not asking for them. And then we're not guilty of making a celebration of these movements of God among us.

We hear them all the time, but we aren't celebrating God's work. We've lost our passion when God acts, as if it has become common place or that we attribute it to something else, an act of fate or consequence. But the truth is, God is at work and we need to get excited about it!

Healings are taking place, the maimed are becoming healthy, prayers are being answered, the blind are looking around. God is blazingly alive among us!

Let's celebrate it and tell someone!

Peace ><>
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Right Training

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

For many of us, that verse brings to mind our children’s gifts or abilities socially, athletically, or artistically speaking. Parents love to see their kids excel outwardly. We push them to learn more, run faster or sing louder. But too often, we forget about the most important aspect of our children’s growth—character. It starts as an inward thing. True character is what emerges out of a personal relationship with Christ. And that’s where we, as parents, need to focus our training. We should constantly be in the business of character training by introducing our children to Christ and living out our own relationship with him.

Now, I’m all for the ECAs—those extracurricular activities like football, dance, and voice lessons. But when it comes to the serious issues of life, the football field, the dance floor or the music hall is not going to get your children where they need to be. Only a personal relationship with the Lord and the character that you have built into them will equip them with the octane they need to be the kind of people God wants them to be. As you live out your life on the rugged plains of reality, your children are watching the character that you display. So lead by example. Train them to display generosity, integrity, honesty, compassion. Because in the grand scheme of God’s plan for your children’s lives, those things are much more important than their ability to throw a ball or recite a few lines on stage.

Train them in the right way, love them enough to share Christ with them and live for Christ yourself!

Peace ><>
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