Eat Your Vegetables

Tuesday Reflections, May 19, 2020

Reading Psalm 78, assigned to this morning's daily office, I was reminded of the following exchange.

It was Christmas, and I was visiting home. I got to talking with one of my mother’s friends about my seminary study, and she brought up that she still attends church (she’s Lutheran) but she was sorry to admit that her children do not. She feels like she nags them about it, and suspects they feel like it’s an extra burden to have to go with her when they visit. Then she said something that broke my heart:

“We taught our children to be good people,

but we forgot to teach them to love God.”

I have plenty of friends who don't practice religion, while their parents do. When I (gently) inquire after their loss of the family faith, the answer is generally that it was up to them to choose whether or not to go to church. To me, this sounds like allowing a child to choose to eat their vegetables, or whether or not they study math, or learn to read, or practice piano. It has left many of my friends in that awkward space of wanting to believe but feeling like they missed their window.

Just imagine if parents let their kids choose whether or not to learn math, hoping they would “find it on their own.”

Nobody is born a Christian. If your faith is valuable to you, pass it on.