AND WHEN THEY ARE OLDER - Christianity Today

It was a simple exchange, standard for a typical, one-day pastors’ seminar. But it haunted me the rest of the week.

“How’s the family? How are your kids doing?”

“Oh, fine. Well-they’re not doing much spiritually.”

“Yeah. Well, I can identify with that.”

My friend is a pastor, like me. We hadn’t seen each other in more than fifteen years. It was good to greet each other again, to see how each of us had changed and in what ways we had remained remarkably the same.

Now, it turned out, we have a new commonality. We have given our lives to preaching and Bible study. We have shared the gospel with other people’s kids and now with singles and young couples and students the age of our own children. Yet we both have the gnawing, nagging feeling that our own kids haven’t taken it very seriously.

Over sandwiches at lunch we talked about it-about grandkids, about divorce, about disappointment, but also about pride and loyalty and openness. No parent is reluctant to regale hearers with tales of offspring’s accomplishments, and we were no different.

I’m sure that my friend, like me, has scores of friends whose kids are missionaries, Sunday school teachers, seminary students, and interns. And I’m sure that, like me, he has experienced the pain and nagging doubt of hearing about someone else’s kids and then asking silently: “What did we do wrong? Did the ministry turn them off? Was I away too much? Did I care for others’ kids too deeply and allow my own to be cast away?”

All day, and for several days to follow, I thought about our conversation. It troubled me that two fathers would greet each other that way. It seemed to me that we were making the mistake all over again: Allowing ourselves to be too much the preacher, too much the dominie, and not enough the father.

Our heavenly Father does not demand from us a certain level of performance. He doesn’t require that we conform to some standard of excellence. He revels in our worship. He glories in the praise of his people. He calls for our love, our praise-our fellowship.

Are my kids “spiritual giants,” doing great exploits for God? No, they aren’t. Are they faithful and loving and loyal and sensitive to others and honoring of their parents? Yes, they certainly are.

Are they active, energetic, busy in “the Lord’s work,” as I was at their age? No, they aren’t. Are they quality persons, living independently, pursuing jobs that interest them, establishing friendships, holding off marriage, almost fearing because these days they see so few marriages happy, as their parents’ has been?

Yes, they are. That and more. Consider:

Ruth, age 26. College graduate, volunteer telephone counselor for an AIDS hotline, a rigid vegetarian since the high school youth group did a world-hunger fast when she was an eleventh-grader.

Every Saturday of the year she has breakfast with her gay friend, John. He’s her best friend, and her world almost unraveled ten years ago when he faced his homosexuality and openly acknowledged it. For her it was a crisis of faith as well as an affair of the heart. He was the love of her life, and she would have married him. But it was not to be. Still, the friendship abides.

Ruthie sings faithfully in her church choir under the man who was her college conductor. It isn’t the church I would have chosen, either for her or myself. But she attends, and sings, and glories each year in the great, citywide Bach festival the church produces. This year, after singing the B-Minor Mass, she once again affirmed her conviction: “J. S. Bach is proof enough that God exists.” She is not the first.

There is Peter, 24. He is also single, and whatever dating and social life he has, he keeps to himself. Considering some of the escapades of his high school days, that may not be all bad.

Pete lives in a studio room in a dumpy part of town so he can be near his work. He’s a set builder, a master carpenter for one of the major equity theaters in the country. He loves it, works hard, is respected by his employees, and never asks his parents for a cent. We have a little money set aside toward his college education, but he may or may not take advantage of it.

When Pete comes to our church-which is seldom-he is conspicuous. Always in well-worn Levis and threadbare sneakers, with his long hair tied back in a neat pony tail, he pulls up in an old VW van, looking like a throwback to the sixties. As far as we know, that’s the only time Pete attends church. When he finished confirmation in the eighth grade (I was the teacher), he rejected baptism and church membership. “I’ve accepted Christ,” he said, “but I’m just not ready for a commitment to the church.”

Tough on us. Tough on him. But honest.

There’s also Alan, 28. He came into our home ten years ago when he and his twin brother were thrown out of their mother’s house one time too many. Alan has graduated from college, is finishing his MBA, and has an important marketing position with Hills Brothers in San Francisco.

Of the three kids, Alan probably has the sturdiest spiritual life. He’s a Lutheran, serves on the board of a local hospice, and worships regularly. He is determined to marry a believer. (“She’s got to share what is important to me,” he declares.)

Three persons. Three grown adults. Autonomous individuals with love and loyalties and interests and convictions. Three children of God, two the fruit of our own union, the other one by choice and inclusion. When the family is called together, they all gather. Christmas and Thanksgiving are times of gathering and celebration, full of traditions and reminiscing. When one of us is in a concert or a play, the others gather to applaud and shine in the reflected glory. We share love and laughter and belonging.

Yet . . .

I don’t approve of all they do. I sometimes grieve that they don’t follow more assiduously the faith their mother embraces and their father preaches. Sometimes I’m even tempted to apologize, to wish my kids were as spiritually turned on as this person’s or that one’s. There is no question that I have failed, at times, as a father.

But what a lesson in God’s faithfulness! Do I always live as the Father intends, in holiness, in sanctification, in obedience? Hardly. Does he accept me anyhow? Somehow, he does.

I am God’s child by new birth. The Spirit himself bears witness with my spirit that I am his, an heir of the grace of life. God doesn’t judge me as I deserve. Rather, he’s gracious and faithful, assuring me that I belong to him. And God takes the long view. It has not yet appeared what I shall be, but I know that when he appears, I shall be like him and I shall see him as he is.

Of course I would like my kids to redeem the time, to make every day count for God, to live as determined citizens of the kingdom of God.

But in the meantime, they are my children, and I love them and cherish them and admire them.

And I trust them to God’s care and keeping.

-Larry D. Ballenger

Irvine (California) Presbyterian Church