“I DON’T want to go to church”, she said.
“Why must I go to church because I get nothing out of it?”
I heard this today spoken by a youngster.
It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. It was spoken from the heart, directly from that portion of the heart which wants to let you know how it feels. It was the truth, at least according to the youngster.
Let me help you out here, little one.
You are the product of a home that has been trained by the ‘church,’ but to be technically a little more accurate, trained by Jesus over several generations, starting with your grandparents.
They became disciples of Jesus over thirty years ago and have been ‘getting things out of church’ for decades now. Thousands of sermons, thousands of conversations, thousands of hours of studying the Bible and working to understand what God had to say to them. This was not without effect as they became more aware of who they were, who others were and how they related to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This has resulted in much character change, and they have become more patient, kinder, more loving, less selfish, more caring towards others and generally much easier to get along with.
This had a knock-on effect on the next generation. This was the spiritually evolving and growing household that your mother grew up in. She and her sister were loved and cared for in a house that did not always have money, but it had a connection to church and others and through all the parenting advice that we got and applied as best we could.
Then your mother met your father. He was also in the church. He had also been ‘getting things out of the church’ up to that point, and together they continued the process of ‘getting things out of a church’ as a young dating couple and then a young married couple and then a young family with children. During all this time, spanning decades, they have been shaped and molded and prodded and guided into the final product that you see today.
Jesus has been busy because both your grandparents and your parents let Him.
During the few years of your life, you have been benefiting from the more than a hundred cumulative years of Jesus training that these two generations have been getting and applying and that you are now the recipient of.
But, of course, you don’t see that.
And that is sad, but it is realistic.
You don’t see it because it has become ‘normal’ to you.
And because this has become normal for you, you have gotten used to living in the land of milk and honey.
One day, when you start dealing with the real world, you will understand better as you realise that the generational relationships that you took for granted growing up are not normal. Normal is divorce and families moving away from each other and grumpy grandfathers and overbearing grandmothers, if you’re lucky. Oftentimes, it means no grandparents around at all. My grandparents lived in a different country, and my wife met her grandmother once or twice when she came for a visit.
That was normal for my generation.
So what can I say?
What can I do?
Well, I, your grandmother and your parents will keep loving and being loved by Jesus so that you can keep getting all the benefits from our relationship with Him. That is how it works, and that cannot change. We will all, however, pray that God will open your eyes just a little bit so that you will one day start ‘seeing,’ the world with eyes that are not focused on you and your needs alone, like most teens in this current world. Then you may be more grateful for all the love that you have received from Jesus through the generations that have been parenting you.
Then you may see Jesus more clearly and realise that who you currently are is not the end product, and your current self could be very different once you get to know Him better.
~~~ THE END ~~~