Chasing Choices!

I can’t stand it.  Losing a group of young adults in the kingdom is driving me nuts.  For years I have wrestled with this issue as a pastor but lately I have been burdened beyond the norm.  Tough one for me as a shepherd.  I see too many young adults who have been raised in church, home-schooled, attended private Christian schools and our public schools – walk away from the “faith” and pursue every facet of life they can be entertained with.  I will never understand it or come to grips with it. 

I am at a loss here.  I beg responses.  I am confident there is no “one” reason.  There is an endless list of excuses and seemingly good rational reasonings.  Help me out here.  Talk to me.  Write back.  Scream at me.  Cuss at me.  Pass the buck. But please do something to help me.  I am at a loss.    Hundreds of young people every day turn from the “institutional’ church venue and step away from practicing their faith as they have been taught.  Why?  What draws them away?  Where have we gone wrong?  Have we gone wrong?  Where did we miss it?

I was moaning and whining about this to my lovely wife who’s wisdom exceeds mine by the train loads.  She simply said this in response to my ashes and sackcloth attitude.  “It seems to me that every generation has their Cain and Abel issues to deal with!”   This response is deeper than your surface thinking mind can assimilate.   Let me try to jump on board her wisdom train.

Cain and Abel.  You remember them don’t you?  The very first siblings of the very first parents.  Wow!  They were really messed up!  No one to blame for “generational curses”.   Mom and dad had no one to compare to and God didn’t offer any parenting classes at the church they attended.  Wham!  All of a sudden they realize they have raised a murderer!  Get out of town!  Come on God!  Sucker punched these two parents right from the get go.   Sibling rivalry.  Sin in the “camp”.   The world was just getting started and wham bam slam! 

This Cain and Abel thing may be something to chase.  Really.  Inbreded in each one of us is the capability to sin.  We are born sinners.  When we raise our children in a faith environment we tend to “obligate” them to our faith practices and our faith standards.  We indoctrinate them…which is what we are supposed to do.  We model Christ to the best of our ability.  We prove failue is not fatal.  We demonstrate forgiveness.   We bless our enemies.  We do all the right things to put our kids on the rock of faith we have created for them.  Then they turn 17 or 18 and we wonder what in God’s name happened to them?  Where did all the teaching go?  What about this thing of bringing up kids in faith so when they “get older they will never depart from it?”  Yeah right!   Prove it!

Well I think there are some dyanmics here we can relate to as Christian parents.  There is the issue of obligation.  Until a young person gets to a certain age (subjective to maturity and personalities of the kids) he or she is obligated to serve the Lord.   We passively intend to take our kids to church.  Bless God they’re going and that’s all there is to it!   We do this for the sake of exposing the kids to faith principles.   There is nothing wrong with this obligation avenue.   I don’t think so anyway.

There is the issue that we get lost in somewhere between the child’s age of “accountability” and us.  Yeah, you heard right….us as parents.  We grow very concerned that their behavior, language, academic and athletic successes portray us as “good Christian parents.”  It’s in this season of Christian parenting that we can get lost in.   Our obligation to expose them to teachings and faith principles that will lead them to salvation gets mixed in with our desire to have the image of good parents.  After all what would others think about US if our kids go bad?  This image issue is huge!  But it also can create another problem for us with this group of kids.

Can our image of what we want our kids to be, act like, worship like, etc. be an albatross?  In some cases, yes!  By now I have parents really upset with me.  But give me a chance here.   I think sometimes our kids have to find their own relationship with Jesus.  They know the obligatorial relationship.  They know all about the rules and faith regulations.  They know the difference in right and wrong.  They really do.  This is what we take pleasure in as good parents.  We really did do “our” part.   The difficult part is letting them do “their” part.  They have to have their own “born again” relationship with Jesus.  We have given them a foundation to build on.   Problem is that most of us want their faith house to look like ours.  I have discovered something.  Foundations are important to any structure but the foundation is not visible in most cases.  It’s hidden and surrounded by dirt.  We give our kids a foundation through their early adult years in life.  We have to somehow let go and let them build on the foundation we have provided.  Their “faith house” may not be exactly like ours, have the same doors, colors, windows, etc.  It may not be furnished like ours.  But we have to let them build their faith house.  It has to mirror who they are not who we are.  If we can accept the foundation part and know that the world may never see or commend our kids for the foundation of their faith house….we will be better served in the arena of parent sanity.

One more thing on this rambling blog today.   I have preached for a long time the difference in belief and conviction.   A belief system will change by environment and even opposing influences in our life.  A conviction is something we will die for.  I really think we have to teach young people to mature with convictions.  The obligation is the belief system.  We do that well.  But teaching our kids to have convictions is an whole new ball game.  It reaches beyond the foundation.  The conviction is what causes our children to defend the home they have built and structured on the foundation provided.   They will give their life for “their” home.  Getting to this stage is not easy.   You can’t obligate someone to a conviction.  A conviction is established in the heart of a person.  A belief system is established in their head.  

I don’t have all the answers and I don’t think anyone does.  Cursed be the person who thinks they have mastered parenting to the degree they have perfected it.  Anethema to them!   Get real!   We are going to wrestle with this issue.  I am just looking for ways to keep our kids when they “spread their wings.”  Yeah, I know!  Some of them will come back and some won’t.  Doesn’t make the heart ache any easier on my side. 

Paul told Timothy not to let anyone despise or make little of his youth in 1 Timothy 4.12.  He then gives some insight as to how to do this: speech, conduct, love, faith and purity.  Could it be that there is something to these five points?  Maybe this is the context for my next blog!  What do you think?  Are we chasing choices or is choices chasing us?  Raising kids and keeping them in the kingdom is about choices.  Both theirs and ours.  Interesting don’t you think?