You said the foolish
Would shame the wise
To put my faith
In what’s beyond my eyes
And to believe You
I have to come as a child
So help me to rest in the mystery
Of what I can’t understand
"To come as a child"....that is such an important part of that song for me and for my ramblings tonight. Matthew 19:14 says-But Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children."
DON'T STOP THEM! Some translations say DON'T HINDER THEM. For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children. Ok so this rant starts with how AGAINST prayer requests I am. I know this sounds so silly but hear me out. Of course I am a HUGE fan of praying for people. But it bugs me to no end that we teach our children to take 20 plus minutes out of a class time (meant for learning God's word, character, and will for our lives) so that they can make a list of who to pray for. The reason this bugs me is because the intention behind it is who has the most sick friends, how large can we make the list, hey I want to talk out loud so I am going to raise my hand and ask prayer requests for people I don't even know--"my brother's girlfriends dog walker's cousin has the flu" I'm SORRY if I am stepping on toes here, but that is NOT what prayer is about. I repeat, NOT, what prayer is about.
Prayer is INTIMATE time talking to our SAVIOR! A Savior who is not a stinking GENIE!! A Savior who lives and breathes in the same room where we vacantly read names off of a board and make it absolutely NOTHING about Him!! Again, hear me say that I am not against praying for people. But teaching our kids that this is what a prayer life is, IS WRONG. We are teaching them to be robots. They will grow up robots, putting God in a box, and the vicious cycle of a generation of people who do not truly know the Lord will continue. How are we as Christians supposed to bring the kingdom of Heaven on earth if we are only teaching our kids the same CRAP that we learned growing up in church?
I have said this many times, and I will say it again, how often I PRAISE GOD I did not grow up in a church. Sure, there have been many hard times because of it. But one amazing thing that happened was there was absolutely no robotic mindset to get me out of-to tug of war my heart in a million different directions, wasting much valuable life-time which would have taken away from the ways He is using me. I don't at all believe that those who were brought up in church are all putting God in a box and training their kids to be robots, that's not the point here at all.
The point is we who work with or have children have this AMAZING and UNBELIEVABLE opportunity to bring the next generation of Christians up in an environment where they DAILY learn to seek God's face. Where they know that worship goes beyond singing hymnals in beautiful 6 part harmony but that God is breaths away from your face and you are getting to BLESS Him with worship. We get to bring children in from the outer courts of the spiritual tabernacle and into the Holy of Holies where they SEE God!! They get to learn His character, learn to be LIKE God, and most importantly fall in LOVE with our Lord!! This is a goal for me and ANY child's life that I get to encounter, because it's not only POSSIBLE to raise children this way, it is the way we were CREATED to come to God. AS CHILDREN. With the faith and unconditional innocent love of a child! But instead, grownups strip all of that away and raise them to be robots because that is how they were raised. It's time to break the mold. They have the capacity to love God in this way because we were created to come to God LIKE THEM! Isn't that so beautifully refreshing!??
This "rant" isn't out of anger by any means. Maybe righteous passion? Regardless, I know when I have kids I will want SO SO SO much more for their life then the kids I see today. And in order to do that I don't want to be the only person on board with how this should happen. I need their surrounding teachers and friends parents' thinking in this same way! Anyone who has influence over my child will have to have this passion or they won't have access to the heart of my kid. That's just the way it will be. And I hope parents today feel that same way about who is teaching their child and what they are teaching them.
I am sure that being everywhere as a parent is ridiculously hard. I teach in many places and in many forums. Of the say 100 kids I have taught in some avenue or another over the past year, I MAYBE have met and talked to 15 parents who were genuinely concerned with how they were doing, what they were learning, their behavior, etc. That is sad to me. So heartbreakingly sad. GET INVOLVED people. Figure out what you want your kids to learn (about God, the world, love, sex, drugs, rock n roll, the whole dang thing) and PUT people in their lives who are going to be your second and third and fourth voices in sharing those values and ideas. If you don't do it now, then when the day comes they're going to think they have it all figured out. Like how we think we have God all figured out, and that's the way we come to Him and teach our kids to come to Him...? Pretty soon that will not be enough and they will FIND the answers they're looking for....but where?
In Him,
Meg
