Impositions and Expectations

There is much talk, nowadays about allowing ones children to choose their own faith and not to impose ones own faith upon them.  Personally, I think that line of thought is rubbish, as a child, a teen, or even some young people cannot think clearly or deeply enough to work through all of those implications.  But that is not the point of this post.

My question is more one of expectations.  When we consider our own level of maturity, both mentally and spiritually, how often do we contrast “that” level with the level of the child we are raising?  Is it reasonable, at all, to expect our children to understand or embrace the spirituality of our particular point in life, in the same manner as we?  Why would an immature child even be close to our level of maturity when they have been “at it” for a far shorter time than we?  Yes, there is the very real aspect of influence and practice, to which they have been exposed, which differs from our own (often times), but there is still the reality of this little person growing up, and having a personality of their own, that will influence them.

What is the point here? Our children are not us, they are their own people and they therefore need to embrace the faith for themselves.  It is our responsibility to raise them as faithfully and consistently as we can, despite our own shortcoming and sinfulness.  Our sins will affect our children.  We must determine how we can minimize this as much as possible.  We need to communicate to our children that our success or failures in living the Christian life must not be the standard by which to judge the validity or value of the Christian faith. We must communicate the perfection of Jesus Christ and make that the model to emulate.