“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7

In the last few months I have met children, teens and young adults, pastors’ children who have been Christians for many years, who openly claim to no longer believe in God. For them, God does not exist and is only a myth. They think the Bible is just another book.

This happens with parents do not develop, teach and live a deep Christian life. Their children are trapped in current secular ideological currents. The following issues can also be a factor.

  1. Parents with different beliefs or lack of conviction in Christian values.
  2. Parents who lead a “light” Christian life without a personal, deep relationship with the Lord.
  3. Parents who have little time for their family and the church. Their lives are filled by work, studies and other distractions that cause them to lose focus, so they spend little time focused on their children and their children’s spiritual lives.
  4. “Christian” parents who spend their lives arguing and blaming God for everything that goes wrong. They have lost their peace and joy in life and instead live bitterly. Their children see little coherence between the Bible and their parents’ lives. The children never see gratitude for blessings from God, so they do not value them either.

All of this molds children who do not see God as the center of their parents’ lives or home. They see Christianity as a learned habit without spiritual depth, because they cannot join it to a spiritual experience.

That is why it is critical that parents:

  1. Speak to their children about God and what he represents for them as parents.
  2. Be examples for their children in seeking God, praying, reading the Bible for themselves and with their children, praying for them, participating in programs with the community of faith and constantly seeking an intimate relationship with the Lord.

Together these produce a silent but effective lesson in our children’s lives just as the Bible verse from Deuteronomy instructs. Be careful that your children know the real God that you believe in. Plant a seed of faith for their whole lives.

May God help you apply what you have learned today.

Dr. Miguel and Irene Garita

Family Care Ministry, Mesoamerica Region