Get Your Own Faith
I was filling out a resume last night and on the application, one of the questions was "Briefly explain your relationship with God."
Sometimes I don't like questions like that, sometimes they're easy to answer. As I typed, my response began (as my testimony usually does) "I grew up in a Christian home as a pastor's daughter..."
From there I wasn't sure where to go, but continued with these words:
People have said to me over the years that if they were to compare my sister and I in terms of potentially having a rebellious stage they would see me as being the rebellious one and not her, which I think is pretty accurate although she would disagree. I had this mindset as I started to try and figure out who I was in upper elementary school into middle school that one day I would quit being a Christian and live my life the way I wanted to not caring about what anyone had to say about it. I knew drugs and alcohol and premarital sex were wrong so there's no way I would even think about getting involved with those kinds of crowds, but in my own way I would prove I no longer wanted to be a Christian and didn't care about God's plan for my life.
So, Sunday after Sunday I sat (uh...slept some Sundays) through church and couldn't give a rip. Until the challenge came from youth group to start making my faith my own. Yeah okay...what does that even mean?
My youth pastor at the time would say this, "Faith is like a parachute. You're not going to know if a parachute works if you hold it in your arms jumping out of plane. You've got to put it on and put it to use." He would go on to explain that as we middle and high school students continued to go through life, what we believe about God and how we live out our faith needs to be our own. Our parents aren't going to always be looking over our shoulders telling us what is right from wrong so it was time for us to step up and make the decision to believe that what we believe is really real.
Those messages from then on have challenged me in the way I live my life. As a Christian people put you into a box by saying what you believe is only because of what your parents or the church have made you believe. Being a pastor's kid, people put you into a box saying you have to look, act, and think a certain way; I found myself in both categories, but mostly the first one. When I chose to finally make my faith my own and decide for myself, on my own without anybody's help or influence, that was when my faith started to take root in my heart.
I apologize for this post being so long, but I was listening to Matt Chandler (a well known pastor) talk about how he is seeing fruit in his 11 year-old daughter even though she's still young and he doesn't know where she'll end up as she gets older. He went on to say, "I can't make my kids believe if they don't want to." Parents, I know I have no leverage to say this because I am not a parent yet so I don't understand how raising teenagers work, but don't forget I've had to put up with myself for all these years and you had to do the same for yourselves. If you raise your kids in a Christian home, you can't do everything in your willpower to make them, force them to sit their butts in church and youth group because there comes a time where you need to let them make their own decision. Sure they might experience a bit of a rebellious phase growing up, but honestly what hormonal teenager doesn't?
What you can do for them (along with your spouse) is pray for them, love them, encourage them even when they might treat you like crap which I am shamefully sorry for treating my parents like when I was a punk teenager. Lead them as much as you can, but you can only go so far with them so make those years count and subtly challenge them with the decision to get their own faith because yours won't stick to them forever.
Sometimes I don't like questions like that, sometimes they're easy to answer. As I typed, my response began (as my testimony usually does) "I grew up in a Christian home as a pastor's daughter..."
From there I wasn't sure where to go, but continued with these words:
"....,but never really made my faith my own until high school. My mentality when it came to my faith was to try and not make my dad look bad or just do what my parents were telling me to do so they would stop lecturing me about what the Bible had to say."Those are words I don't think I have ever used before in my testimony. How awful is it that as a child instead of wanting to embrace my faith and be proud of who I was as a child of God, I just wanted to stop hearing my parents' voices and only go to church because how would that look if the pastor's daughter didn't attend church every week?
People have said to me over the years that if they were to compare my sister and I in terms of potentially having a rebellious stage they would see me as being the rebellious one and not her, which I think is pretty accurate although she would disagree. I had this mindset as I started to try and figure out who I was in upper elementary school into middle school that one day I would quit being a Christian and live my life the way I wanted to not caring about what anyone had to say about it. I knew drugs and alcohol and premarital sex were wrong so there's no way I would even think about getting involved with those kinds of crowds, but in my own way I would prove I no longer wanted to be a Christian and didn't care about God's plan for my life.
So, Sunday after Sunday I sat (uh...slept some Sundays) through church and couldn't give a rip. Until the challenge came from youth group to start making my faith my own. Yeah okay...what does that even mean?
My youth pastor at the time would say this, "Faith is like a parachute. You're not going to know if a parachute works if you hold it in your arms jumping out of plane. You've got to put it on and put it to use." He would go on to explain that as we middle and high school students continued to go through life, what we believe about God and how we live out our faith needs to be our own. Our parents aren't going to always be looking over our shoulders telling us what is right from wrong so it was time for us to step up and make the decision to believe that what we believe is really real.
Those messages from then on have challenged me in the way I live my life. As a Christian people put you into a box by saying what you believe is only because of what your parents or the church have made you believe. Being a pastor's kid, people put you into a box saying you have to look, act, and think a certain way; I found myself in both categories, but mostly the first one. When I chose to finally make my faith my own and decide for myself, on my own without anybody's help or influence, that was when my faith started to take root in my heart.
I apologize for this post being so long, but I was listening to Matt Chandler (a well known pastor) talk about how he is seeing fruit in his 11 year-old daughter even though she's still young and he doesn't know where she'll end up as she gets older. He went on to say, "I can't make my kids believe if they don't want to." Parents, I know I have no leverage to say this because I am not a parent yet so I don't understand how raising teenagers work, but don't forget I've had to put up with myself for all these years and you had to do the same for yourselves. If you raise your kids in a Christian home, you can't do everything in your willpower to make them, force them to sit their butts in church and youth group because there comes a time where you need to let them make their own decision. Sure they might experience a bit of a rebellious phase growing up, but honestly what hormonal teenager doesn't?
What you can do for them (along with your spouse) is pray for them, love them, encourage them even when they might treat you like crap which I am shamefully sorry for treating my parents like when I was a punk teenager. Lead them as much as you can, but you can only go so far with them so make those years count and subtly challenge them with the decision to get their own faith because yours won't stick to them forever.
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