What's the deal with congregations supplying vast annual monetary support and abundant church activities along with many volunteers for children only to see too many of them eventually walk away from us as young adults? Dare I get by with suggesting they might be dying of boredom? Busy and/or active is not the same as adventure and risk.
When I was a kid I found a bird who misread the landing strip, missed his runway and became stuck in the hot goo of our newly blacktopped street. There the poor thing was stuck.....glued bird-chest to the tar road...wings still in tact but not strong enough to pull a successful lift-off. I, being the heroic rescuer of all things at age 10, forged ahead to liberate the traumatized sparrow. Well, I really let the younger neighbor boy dig the bird out as I didn't want to get messy....after all, I was the director of the mission. The point is we saved the bird. But, my folks wouldn't let me keep it caged because they said it was created to soar. They said it would die if we kept it caged.
A mistake parents may be making is inadvertently domesticating their kids. Children are not family pets. Kids were created by God for adventure! They are to be Spirit groomed for eventual battle of light over darkness. Yet, we protect them from bad things. We pluck off their wings. They weren't created for safety, but rather for high-alert risk. Kids get a dollar from Grandma and, whatd'ya know, want to give it to missions. Parents urge them to rethink in the name of training them the value of a dollar. Their hearts begin to learn to be reserved.
Parents are afraid the children are going to get hurt serving God. Could I ask you what book you read in the N.T. which indicates there should be expectation of working in God's kingdom and not getting hurt? We may be breaking down God's plan. Our kids are destined for raw, all-out, spectacular participation in the wild of God's kingdom. Yet, by the time we get done with raising them and releasing them from their church cages, some are found to be de-clawed and quite timid about their faith. What do we do about it?
I suggest we learn to let them serve God where they feel called. We must speak words of encouragement to their daring dreams. We begin to talk as if Disney World can't hold a candle to the creativity of the Living God in the Breathing Kingdom! We brag to them that we served not knowing how it would go, but sure God would provide. We blurt out our dreams and ideas that don't make sense; there seems to be no rhyme nor reason as to why it should work...but can because God is sooooooo sharp in His ability. We...we....talk more enthusiastic about God doing marvelous things than we talk about anything else in life.
Afraid your child will get hurt? I really can think of nothing worse than taking your kid to church year after year to discover he or she is severely deformed because our hesitant talk de-clawed their spirit. Children are not given to us to cage. They are ours to train.....to soar!
2 comments:
Amen. Thanks for the "not-so coincidental" message and it's timing for my family today. (God is amazing in how He orchestrates what we need to hear at just the right moment.:-)
TR - thank you for another brilliantly-timed blog... I am convinced that our sovereign God caused you to write this (and caused me to become an avid reader of your blog a few weeks ago) specifically so I would be blessed and challenged by your God-blessed pen. Today's message was especially timely:
Our oldest daughter leaves for college in a few months... we hoped she would attend Harding U (like her daddy), which is 2 hours from our house... but God opened other doors so wide and so obviously that even I couldn't miss them!
She was offered a very generous scholarship to play basketball for York College, which is 9 hours away!
This is NOT what I had in my master plan... but my wife and I have a great peace about it because she is so excited about this opportunity.
To your point: without even knowing it, God has directed my wife and I to (almost inadvertantly) instill some sense of adventure in her. We have been blessed with the opportunity to travel to several 'mission points' (both domestic and foreign) over the course of my daughter's life... and this summer our family will travel to Panama for another mission effort. (I say none of this to brag... just to make a point)
So, the light bulb is just starting to illuminate above my head! We always wondered why, when my daughter would go to summer camp, she preferred attending a session where she knew nobody... or why, when she had the opportunity to travel to the gulf coast and help those affected by Rita and Katrina, she jumped at the chance.... or why now, when making the biggest such decision of her young life, she is going to a part of the world where she has never been to attend college...
Yet I had never really made the connection between who she is and how she became who she is... until I read your blog today.
...indeed God works His will in His way...
Since my daughter made the decision to attend York, many of our friends have expressed sentiments like "whew, that's a long way away", or "man, how will you guys survive"... one even said "I would never let my child go that far away to college... I bet she'll be home in a year!"
My wife and I were really upset by the last one... but until I read your blog today, I could not quite put my finger on why I was offended at that mindset...til I read your blog...
and... voila!!! it's because "...kids were created for adventure..."
Amen and Amen!
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