A Faith Their Own – Part 1
Over the summer I want to give a few tips on how to instill a lasting faith in kids. As parents we all want to be the best parent we can be for our kids, but sometimes we don’t fully understand what our kids really need. Sometimes we allow our circumstances to predict how we perceive what our kids need.
The reality is God wants to use whatever our circumstances are to tell His story. He wants to use our brokenness, our imperfections, to tell a story of restoration and redemption. Thats why God uses broken people and broken families all throughout scripture to make incredible differences.
In 1 Samuel 1 you can find the story of Hannah. Hannah is a wife of a Hebrew man, but she is unable to have children. Hannah is unable to give her husband an heir, but she didn’t give up. She boldly prayed for a son.
Sometimes our greatest prayers come out of our deepest pain.
Look what it says in 1 Samuel 1:11 (NIV)
And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lordfor all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”
Hannah even prayed for the outcome for her son. She saw the importance of looking beyond where currently was and saw where she wanted to be and where she wanted her son to be.
If you want your child to have a faith of their own, parents have to IMAGINE THE END.
A few years ago I was taking a class to get my motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license. One of the tests you have to take is the cone test. They set out a bunch of orange traffic cones and your job is to weave in and out of them and make it to the end without missing any of them or knocking them over.
It was my turn to go for it and I got in there and was doing my best and all of the sudden I realized I had missed a cone, then I miss another one and soon I was all messed up.
After missing the mark in on my first try, the instructor told me to quit looking at where I currently was and to focus on the end. When my eyes were looking to where I wanted to end up, I got there with no issues. I focused on the end.
If you focus on where you want your kids to end up, you have a goal to reach for. You are able to parent and make decisions based on where you want your kids to be by the time they leave to be out on their own.
When you imagine the end, you realize that no one has more potential to influence your child than you.
Reggie Joiner, founder of the reThink group, a group designed to give churches tools to partner with parents in developing a child’s spiritual life, says,
When you imagine the end, it enables you to distinguish more clearly between what matters and what matters most.
If you want your kids to have a faith of their own, you have to Imagine the End.
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