A Call for Original Grace in Children & Church

A child cannot but help growing up imitating his parents' faith. They naturally learn to imitate Mom & Dad in many ways, convictions being just one of them. As most of us have discovered, a borrowed, or second-hand faith will not stand up against the trials of life; it is a sort of chimera, a fictional trust. It's adolescent. We expect imitation at a young age; it's part of what growing up is about. But by the time toddlers evolve into adolescents and then into teenagers, maturity takes on a more pronounced form. It is so important at this time for a child to have come to know truth, yes, to know God as it were on his own. Is there a name for this?

"Original Grace"

When I was counseling my daughter, Rachel for her marriage back in 2005, this was one of the most important "qualities" I dealt with in her. Yes, we talked of love, commitment, sex, and money as every marriage counselor ought. But, as her father and pastor, I was also concerned that she knowingly take a more personally grounded faith into her relationship with Jay for Christ's sake. It was at this point I was scrambling in my mind trying to find a term that described this plight. The week of our next appointment it hit me--a phrase that might express such a faith. In our next meeting I explained to my daughter and future son-in-law how important it was that faith be their own, something they understood readily. I said, "Rachel it's one thing to follow Christ because Mom & Dad do (which she knew), but quite another for you to see God's great value and to seek Christ with all your heart because you know it, you feel it and you believe it." I said, "What you must exhibit is what I would call 'original grace,' a grace that originates in you personally, which you have experienced, and not just because someone modeled for you. 

There is great need for our children (& our church members) to sport not their parents' or their pastor's faith but to realize their own. As there is a call for preachers to be original in their explication of truth from the pulpit, so we who lead in the church must urge upon each Christian the pursuance of God for themselves and not detour (devolve) from this into TV religion or even good Christian books. A borrowed faith will hardly be a happy faith, and will certainly not be able to stand the test of trials and contradiction. Let us aim to foster such a belief that it may be said of our families and our fellow believers that we all exhibit a God-honoring, Christ trusting, "original grace."

Postscript. I can say that both Jay & Rachel have labored in their lives to live out an honest & original pursuit of faith in God. They, like we all, are in process. Praise the Lord, there is superabundant grace to go around for all of us! "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work" (2 Cor. 9:8).