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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