What Our Kids Need To Know In A Broken World

Submitted by Jennifer Power

Sometimes the words seem empty. We struggle to help our children understand. We might even recognize their emptiness, but thinking this is what we are meant to say, we say it. Maybe we believe it and maybe we don’t. Either way, we fear the day our children realize it isn’t true – not quite. Then what will become of their faith?

“God will protect you.”

Well meaning, we teach our children not to fear by telling them God will protect us. We teach them to pray in scary situations, that He always hears our prayers, and that He will protect us.

We mistakenly believe God’s provision for us is safety, security, health, comfort, power, and triumph. When we are not careful, we teach our children to rely on something we ourselves know to be empty.

We feel relief when our children pray for some small request and find it granted, fearful of the day their request comes back unfulfilled. Even then, we have a plan. We teach them God answers prayers in three ways: yes, no, and wait. We assure our kids God hears them no matter what happens in response to their prayers. We create a safety net for God so no matter what happens, they can keep their belief in Him intact…even while it silently begins to crumble.

In recent weeks, I have had difficulty sleeping. Each night, I’d lay awake, never experiencing that comfortable sleepiness which typically preludes sleep. From wide awake, thoughts running a hundred miles an hour, to sleep with no awareness of the transition. Waking frequently throughout the night and repeating the sleeplessness multiple times, I’d awake with exhaustion and a headache. Day after day with little relief, the pattern repeated.

During this time, there was no getting up early to read and pray. On my way to work, I would try multiple times to focus my thoughts on God with little success. Throughout the day I would say small prayers but struggle to obtain any sustained focus on God. On the way home, I would try again…and fail again. One day, late last week, I attempted to stop in the middle of my work day to read about God and center my thoughts on God for even a few short minutes. My mind racing and my thoughts chaotic, concentration did not come.

Sunday night, I picked a fight with my husband which lasted well into the middle of the night. I was empty. I was done.

Somewhere in the middle of that night, the pieces started coming together.

Fear.

I realized as I talked about my internal battle, the role fear had been playing, wreaking havoc on my peace and on my joy. Fear had been controlling my thoughts, robbing me of sleep, and destroying my ability to function.

Fear of my own insufficiency.

Fear of my lack of control over small situations that seemed to be unraveling.

Fear of losing my sustaining connection with God and slipping ever farther from Him.

These fears were there, bubbling beneath the surface, hiding from my ability to grasp, name, and recognize them for the frauds they were. But these were not the fears which most gripped me in recent days.

Fear for the safety of my children had taken an iron grip on my soul and had been draining my life.

All sorts of fears for my children had been coming at me lately, and fighting against them only added to my exhaustion. In Sunday worship this past week, an image on one of the slides led me to a terrorizing mental battle as I contemplated a scenario involving my kids which turned my blood to ice as fear took a tight grip on my mind.

In that worship service three days ago, God sat beside me, held my hand, and walked me through it. Later that evening, tears streamed down my face as I relayed to my husband the many, many fears for our children that had plagued me in recent days. Until that moment, each occurrence of fear was an isolated incident. I had drawn no connection between my fears, my lack of sleep, and my struggle to stay connected to God. God had, after all, walked me through each fearful situation in one way or another – just like He did earlier that day in worship.

I do not know what started my inward battle, but lately, among fellow believers, I have observed a heightened sense of fear and anger which I believe has contributed. As politics are turning Christians into warriors who attack one another and attack minorities and the helpless with not a whiff of love, and as Christians are slipping into the minority, we are longing for the past and scrambling to figure out what we are going to do to fight for the world as we have known it.

We have become fixated on fixing our world when what our world desperately needs is for us to fix our eyes on Jesus.

I am so very tired of hearing about how our world is falling apart. I am no stranger to fear. No stranger to terror and dread. Fear and dread have often been close companions of mine, never far from my consciousness even in the happiest of moments. I have seen and experienced enough of this world to know it is full of unspeakable horrors from which no one is immune. At any moment, everything could change, so what is it to which we cling? We long and claw for a better world for our children even while it slips through our fingers, but we struggle to grasp the truth.

There is a truth for believers which can bring hope and joy in unexpected places.

This world is not our home – we are aliens and strangers here. (Hebrews 11:13-16 & 13:14, Philippians 3:20)

I do not mean we should become fixated on the life that is to come (i.e. heaven), but that we should become fixated on the life that is to come which is already here and is already within us. That life is the life of Jesus Christ.

It is prudent to do what we can for our world – to make it better and to better have it reflect the love of God, but this prudence is not found through fear, anger, terror, or in vicious attacks on those with whom we disagree. It is not found in preparing our children through over-exposure to the realities of the world or through empty platitudes which claim Jesus will keep them from all harm. It is not found in giving our children all the right answers to all the hard questions. All of these are bound to disappoint and rob us of joy and peace.

But these, these are worthy truths to which I will forever cling:

God is always with us.

God will NEVER leave us.

He will NEVER forsake us.

God loves us with a desperate love.

God loves my children with a desperate love.

My prayers for my children still include prayers for their protection (after all, the prayers of the righteous are powerful), even though I know these requests may not always be granted. While I would love for their lives to be easy, light, full of happiness, and full of little pain, I do not hope for these more than I hope for something greater.

My greatest hope for my children is that they would know the love of God intimately.  I know this is the only true hope, the only true joy, and the only true peace. It is what I ask God to give to my children. It is what I seek for myself, that I may be a model for them of one who knows God intimately, loves Him deeply, and is acquainted with His deep love for her. Of one whose actions flow out of this love even when the world falls apart. It is what I pray they hunger for and what I pray goes down deep into their bones, into the deepest parts of their being. For if they have this, they will lack nothing, and nothing will ever harm them – not in any lasting way.

They can face the worst this world has to offer. It is the only way I know to protect them. Fear may strike for a moment, and terror may have its day, but the ones who belong to God will never be left to endure alone, and the dark night will always give way to a bright morning.

When our hope is found in God in such a way, joy, peace, hope, and life are found even in the midst of the night. For those who trust in the Lord, our life in Christ does not begin once we die, but has begun even now.

My challenge for us as Christian parents today is this:

Instead of teaching our children that God will always protect them (remember, children are literal and may not understand what this means in the abstract – they think it means nothing bad will ever happen to them), let’s teach our children these truths from the Bible:

God loves them. (Romans 5:8, John 3:16, Ephesians 2:4-5, 1 Peter 5:6-7)

He is always with them. (Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 28:20, Hebrews 13:5, Psalm 23:4)

They can talk with Him all the time, He always hears them, and their prayers are powerful. (1 John 5:14, Psalm 66:17-20, 1 Peter 3:12, James 5:16, Hebrews 4:16, Matthew 7:7)

He will never leave them, He is with them now, and they will be with Him forever. (John 17:3, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Revelation 21:4, John 11:25-26, John 6:51)

And, let’s tell them the stories of what God has done in the past as recorded in the Bible and as recorded throughout history since. And let’s tell them stories of what God has done for us and continues to do for us now.

And, let’s model for our children what it looks like to cling to Christ – to find our hope in Him alone. To rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. To respond to the hurting with compassion. To become ever more and more like Jesus.

And, let’s lift our hands and our hearts to Him in worship, together with our children. Let us praise Him together, for He is good, and no matter what happens, He is still on His throne and we are still His.

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