There was an evening about 10 years ago when I tried to explain to my kids why it’s worth it to endure the boring elements of our Christian traditions.
My kids looked at me confused. They didn’t understand the premise.
So I tried again. “You know when you feel bored during worship or teaching, and you can’t wait for it to end?”
Still blank stares.
At that time a friend was living with us and overheard what I was trying to communicate and he stopped me.
“Jeremy, your kids’ experience of the faith is not boring to them. They experience the faith through things like festivals and Sabbath dinners. You’re kind of talking to yourself.”
He was right.
I didn’t know what it was like to grow up in a faith where one of my main experiences of the faith was a feast.
This was brought back to mind this week by something Tim Chester wrote in his book You Can Change.
“It’s as if there are two feasts: the feast of God and the feast of sin. We’re invited to both. God invites us to find satisfaction in him. Sin entices us, with its lies, to look for satisfaction in sin. So we’re double-booked. All the time we have to choose which feast to attend. This is God’s invitation to us:
“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food. Isaiah 55:1-2
Do your kids experience their faith as a feast full of meaning?
Is this experience powerful enough to help them see the shallowness and emptiness of the feast of sin?
Sometimes we think true faith should be all grit and determination. While there are seasons where these elements are also necessary, we must be careful not to communicate these as the essence of our faith.
We are being invited to an abundant table, and at that table everyone is a son or daughter.
Jeremy
This entry is a part of Jeremy’s Journal, a newsletter Jeremy sends out every Wednesday morning to encourage you on your parenting journey. You can sign up to get them every Wednesday here.
