Following up on last week’s WOH. I wanted to discuss my Dad’s beautiful love for Christ. He always cherished my faith and did not look at my life with concern or fear. He knew my journey with Christ was my own. Dad modeled a deeply profound faith, and it was so contagious. I wanted to follow God because my Dad and Mom made this way of living so compelling. For many Christian homes, the parents are afraid their kids won’t believe, so they get strict and mean and rule-based. This strictness creates two devastating outcomes- the child adopts the parent’s faith in subservience and blind obedience—Never making faith personal but a sycophantic adherence to a cultural way of life. This leads to hiddenness and secretly acting out any repression hidden behind the facade. 

The other outcome is a child who has to rebel and forge a new adventurous path, often finding great liberation and freedom from the regime of dominance in the home. These children “go wild,” reject “Christianity.” In reality, they are rejecting a fear and punitive based home who would rather crush or excommunicate a child with a dynamic mind of his or her own. 

Dad loved my faith, and we learned from each other. I have my own adventure with faith that is uniquely my mine, and we shared the wonder of the faith journey together. I loved Dad for this tremendous life gift of trusting God enough to speak in my life. Dad knew his faith was sacred, and therefore he was careful not to try to be God in someone else’s journey. 

“The Lord God is my strength, my personal bravery and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk (not to stand still in terror) but to walk and make Spiritual progress upon my high places of trouble, suffering, or responsibility.” – Habakkuk 3:19 (amplified)

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