Preparing Our Children for the Second Coming

How can we help our children be ready to welcome Jesus' return?

The longer I'm a parent, the less impressed I am with how much I know about parenting. It all seemed so clear, so plain and simple when my children were toddlers. Yes, the job was physically exhausting—chasing three children under five years old around, and changing diapers, and losing sleep—but mentally it was simple. Their father and I were the boss. We were bigger and stronger and wiser and had all the answers to their questions. In short, life was very much under control. Spiritual training was simple. We learned sweet Bible songs, took them to Sabbath School, read to them out of wonderful books with important lessons in them, went for nature walks, had family worship, prayed with them at bedtime, and gave them lots of love. And we were greatly rewarded with the joys of parenting three lovable and adorable children. Were we not preparing them to see Jesus? Indeed we were. And it was so simple.

Independent Thinkers. Yet somehow, now that our children have grown to seventeen, fourteen, and twelve, I have to wonder if preparing my teenagers to see Jesus is perhaps a more difficult task than it was when they were knee high. Somehow parenting doesn't seem quite as simple as it once did. For one thing, my three children know so much more about life than when they were young. And at their ages now, they often think they know more about it than I do!

So a parent's answer to an older child's question doesn't necessarily satisfy their inquiring mind all the time. Perhaps they will accept my answer, perhaps they will add their own thought to it, or perhaps they will reject it! And would I really want it any different? No, I think not, for though it may be unsettling for a parent to have a child doubt or question him, it does show that the child is thinking for himself. And when I think about how I can prepare my children for the second coming, this is perhaps the most important thing that comes to my mind—teach and encourage the child to think for himself, and be able to stand alone for what he believes.

Ellen G. White spoke most definitely about this when she said, "It is the work of true education . . . to train the youth to be thinkers, and not mere reflectors of other men's thought" (Education, p. 17). Does there come a time in the parent/child relationship when the child must think his own thoughts, and not merely reflect those of his parents?

This is scary. But so is the power of choice! And yet it is so intensely important to God that He allowed His only Son to die to preserve it. Our children will be ready to meet Jesus only if they have chosen Him as their own Lord and Saviour. As individuals we must stand before the judgment bar of God. Sooner or later all will make their own choices for or against God and will be held accountable for them. The question is, what can we as parents do to help our children make the right choice?

Happy Childhood Memories. I believe we must teach and train, love dearly, and discipline diligently, especially when our children are young and moldable. This is the special responsibility of the parent with small children. We mustn't be lazy. We must put everything we've got into laying a solid spiritual foundation. I remember many a Sabbath afternoon when our children were young. My husband, a revivalist, was often gone on speaking engagements over Sabbath and I was responsible for three wiggly small forms on my own. What I wouldn't give for a break on Sabbath afternoon, to sleep or read! Instead, I would find myself at the local nature center with them or on a walk in the woods, or climbing sand dunes. I determined that Sabbath would be the best day of the week for them—and it always was. Even today my kids tell me that Sabbath is their favorite day of the week.

Happy childhood memories are a powerful force in wooing children to make right choices.

I believe it is worth all the time, trouble, and self-denial we can muster to give this gift to our children, and I believe it makes a big difference in their own spiritual life and their attitudes toward some of our beliefs, like the Sabbath. Happy childhood memories are a powerful force in wooing children to make right choices.

Consequences of Choice. As our children mature, I believe we must continue to make Sabbath special, to continue the rituals of early childhood, even though these will change in their form to suit the minds of older children. I also believe that the parents should still be the boss and that the children should learn to accept by faith that the parents probably still know more than they do even if they don't agree with them! Isn't that what the fifth commandment is all about?

But I believe it is also at this time that we as parents must give space to our children for testing and proving. I don't mean by this that we should allow our children to rebel completely and live a worldly life while we don't say a thing about it because they are "testing and proving" things. We as parents still need to have principles, boundaries and guidelines within which our children can test and prove. If they step outside of those boundaries, they must reap the consequences of their choices. They must forfeit privileges they once enjoyed, for we cannot prepare our children for the second coming without helping them learn that there are consequences to choice—we will reap what we sow.

A good example of sowing and reaping just occurred this past Sabbath. My children and I had taken a Sabbath drive to a beautiful spot along a river situated on the border of Glacier National Park not far from our home. My twelve-year-old daughter, determined as ever, was positively sure she could step over rocks on the surface of the river and walk across without getting anything but her feet wet. I was positively sure she could not. But she thought she knew better. I finally gave her my permission to try and told her she would probably get all wet, and if she did I didn't want to hear one word of complaint about it. So of course, very self assured, she speedily went for the rocks.

After much difficulty she finally made it to the other side of the river bank, soaking wet above her knees but jubilant. She crossed back over the river again getting wet up to her waist the second time. She made her choice—now she would have to live with the consequences. She silently sat wet, cold and miserable all the way home in the

back of the car. Perhaps during that time she wished she hadn't crossed over and gotten wet. Perhaps she was glad she did! At any rate, I allowed her to choose, and then I allowed her to suffer. We as parents must allow our children to choose—and sometimes to suffer.

Search for Truth. How do we motivate a child to search for truth in the first place? In this age of passive learning, video watching, and entertainment lifestyles, how does one light a fire under children (or anyone) to get them out of their couch potato mentality and make them willing to put forth effort to learn and grow and search for answers?

Some suggest correctly that the search for truth is inborn—a natural instinct that comes to each of us as a birthright—and that the drive of curiosity is a normal part of human existence. A powerful force in the young child asks endless questions and at times drives the parent to distraction. It is the child's inborn need to learn about his world—a gift from God.

And yet, somewhere down life's road, that drive to search and discover wanes. Just try being a Junior or Youth Sabbath School teacher if you doubt this! In the world and in the church are many children who seem dull, lifeless, and unthinking. Some children have chosen paths far from truth, who neither love nor desire truth. But why? Has the child lost this desire quite naturally or has it been smothered out of him by factors in his environment, perhaps even including church, school, home, and parents? We may never have all the answers to these questions, but we need to think seriously about how truth and the knowledge of it is presented to our children.

Beauty of Truth. I firmly believe that truth, or what the parents believe to be truth, based upon Scripture, needs to be presented to the child in as attractive, beautiful, and appealing a manner as possible. We must explain and discuss from the early years of childhood what we believe and why we believe it. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" (Isa 1:18). We must make truth beautiful—extremely beautiful. We must make our ourselves, our homes, our schools, our churches, beautiful. Not luxurious, but beautiful. We must do all we can to reveal and reflect the beauty of the lovely Saviour in all we are and do. Quite an assignment!

Of course there are times when it may all fall apart and turn ugly—at times we make mistakes, say unkind things and are less than pleasant in the home—but as a general rule, the child must be given the impression that his parent's beliefs and value system make life beautiful and are therefore desirable. Ellen White has had much to say along these lines in The Adventist Home and for many of the same reasons. She has said that home to the child must be the most attractive place in the world (p. 21). If the marketing industry is smart enough to put beautiful packaging and trimmings on the products it sells in order to attract consumers to buy, why can't we be just as smart or smarter when it comes to marketing our faith to our children? The thought of "marketing" our faith may sound irreligious, cheap, and even heathen. But really, isn't this what we need to do? We cannot give our faith to our

children, although it is a free gift from God. They must first be attracted to it because it is beautiful. They must seek and desire it, they must have an intellectual reason why they should buy it, and then they must purchase it by sacrificing self and be willing to pay the price of discipleship.

Throughout history, disciples and martyrs have been willing to pay the ultimate price because they saw something beautiful, attractive and lovely in the person of Jesus Christ. They were willing to spend and be spent for Him because He was the ultimate prize. Christ woos us and attracts us to Himself. "I, if I be lifted up . . . , will draw all men unto me" (Jn 12:32). So must we do with our children. Our homes, our persons, must speak eloquently to our children of Christ and His matchless beauty. This is what I truly believe will motivate our children to desire to seek for truth.

Lack of Beauty. Frankie Schaeffer, son of the well known late theologian Francis Schaeffer, has recently left his evangelical Christian faith and joined the Greek Orthodox Church. Many have wondered why the son of one of our greatest Christian theological minds, with all the knowledge and training he has received, would make such a choice. The answer Schaeffer gives is that he became disillusioned with the lack of beauty and intellectual thought within evangelical Christianity. He believed that if Christianity is truth, then that truth should be manifested through beauty within the church. He did not see beauty revealed there, but in contrast he found it revealed within the Orthodox church. Though I can't agree with Schaeffer's conclusion, he does raise questions that are valid. The fact remains that our children will seek that which they are attracted to, and it is our job to make sure our faith is attractive.

It is a wonderful and humbling realization, that in my own quest for winning my children to Christ and preparing them to meet Him at the second coming, I am also preparing myself for the same great event. I believe it is our duty as parents to prepare these chil-

dren for Him. This is no small task, but the diligence, earnestness and effort that I put into preparing them is actually transforming my own character. So I suppose one could ask, Does the parent prepare the child, or does the child prepare the parent? God only knows, but perhaps in His wisdom He knew that we would need each other. And praise God, I think my children have taught me more about life than I have taught them. It is my prayer for each of us as parents that we may one day soon with great joy say, "Here am I, Lord, and the children that thou hast given me."