If you've been following this blog, you know that I've been recently helping a cousin witness to her athiest friend. The cousin is doing all the hard work, and I'm helping her with some perspective and advice.
But, one of the things this athiest friend said has caught my attention, because this individual has gone through something I believe most young people deal with as they leave home for the college and adult worlds. They start to question all they were taught by their parents. It doesn't matter the type of home a child comes from, whether good or bad, young people, as they enter their 20s, typically look back to assess whether the way they were raised was right or wrong.
It's all part of the process that shapes our beliefs and lifestyles as we grow older. I did it, my wife did it, and I'm sure you have as well. We put nearly everything we've been taught to the test. And, by "test," I don't mean we necessarily go out to violate those teachings. Instead, we think about them and run through great thought processes to determine whether those "values" are really of any value.
In working with this athiest lady, she more or less admits coming from a home that claimed Christianity, but she has determined that the Christianity of her family was an oppressive one, not the enlightening and freeing one talked about in the Bible. Somewhere in her young, adult life this lady started to process all she had been taught, and weighed it against how she perceived truth to be at this stage of her life. She chose to walk away from religion.
How is it that what happened to her didn't also happen to me, my wife, my cousin, or countless others who stayed with their faith? Additionally, as a parent what am I doing to ensure that my children won't recant their faith when they hit the college years?
Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." And, Mark 4 illustrates how different people process the teachings of the Bible differently. Some for good, some not so much.
These appear to be such simple passages, yet they provide a tremendous challenge for parents. I want my children to grow up experiencing the full extent of God's grace and glory. I want them to be certain of their beliefs by the time they leave high school and head out on their own, so when the day comes that they start to question everything, they will know where to go for the answers.
I want them to discover that their parents' convictions weren't just something we came up with out of thin air, but that there are real reasons for them that can be backed up either with the Bible or with the wisdom of personal experience. I want them to know which values are my opinion and open to their own reasoning, and which are extremely important, God-given instructions.
You see, the stuff that is my opinion which cannot be necessarily backed up by scripture is just my personal conviction. It may have some wisdom associated with it, but if not also backed up by scripture, my boys are free to accept my opinion or cast it off and form their own. I've done some of this with personal convictions my parents passed to my sister and I. Some I have accepted, and some I haven't.
With that in mind, what do I teach my children? I think I'll have to mix both conviction and truth. They'll have to know that the Bible gives certain liberties, but those liberties carried to the extreme can also have bad consequences (such as consumption of alcohol). So, my children will have to learn the wisdom handed down from previous generations, and ultimately will make their own decisions.
In light of the recent adventures with the athiest, this challenge to train up my children has taken on a much more important meaning.
How about you? How have you weighed what you were taught with the truth of the Bible? How are you preparing your children to enter adulthood in a way that will keep them on God's path and off the world's path?
No comments:
Post a Comment