From Earthly to Eternal Parent

When our boys were young, I was a small group leader in the children’s ministry in our church. Then, when our sons moved to the junior high department, I moved with them. I remember Chris, the junior high pastor, talking to us group leaders about the difference between the faith of a child and that of a junior high kid. He said, “Before, your child’s faith was his family’s faith. Now he is going to be working on his faith as an individual.”

Chris was right. The kids, mine included, began asking questions they had never asked in children’s ministry. Some doubted the existence of God. Others thought their parents’ faith was weird. Some felt that Christianity was too judgmental. Still others didn’t see the relevance of faith. They were asking the right questions, at the right time. But I knew one thing for sure: gone were those “soaking-info-like-a-sponge” days of childhood. These kids were wrestling with their faith. Hello, adolescence!

A Time of Spiritual Wrestling

If your teen grumbles about going to church and youth group, or even declares that he doesn’t believe in anything, you may be under the impression that teenagers are “on hold” spiritually, and that you had better have no spiritual expectations until your teen is a young adult. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. The teenage years are an important spiritual time in your child’s life, whether or not he recognizes it.

Why is this period so important? Because your teen is in the process of changing parents. He is transferring his dependency and obedience from you, his earthly parent, to God, his eternal parent. We were never designed to be our own authorities or judges, the absolute rulers of our lives. As adults, we are to run our destinies under God’s supportive and guiding hand. The apostle Paul reminds us: “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live.”¹⁹ The years your teen spends with you form the foundation for his true and final relationship with a parent.

Adolescence is a time of challenge and questioning in all areas, including the spiritual world. Your teen is discovering the nature and meaning of his faith. Even though it may sometimes look like it, he isn’t regressing into chaos and craziness. He is going through a true and valid spiritual passage. He must go through this passage, or he will never own his faith. He must wrestle, challenge, question, and doubt so that, when he truly believes, he will have a solid and substantial faith.

How does this happen? The same way a teen does anything. He learns some information. He tests what he has learned, then decides if he truly believes it, based on that testing experience. All of us form our own life conclusions this way.

For example, children don’t question the miraculous stories in the Bible. But when children become teenagers, they begin to question whether or not there was an ark, or if Jesus was raised from the dead. They doubt, argue, and say it’s silly. Then they read about the Bible (I have found that teens are very interested in spiritual matters and in reading the Bible), talk to people who can talk to teens about their questions, and decide if the Christian faith is something they believe because they believe it, not because their parents have told them it’s true.

This is the crux of the matter: your teen needs to wrestle with God, as the young man Jacob did, and as we all must. But the struggle must be between your teen and God, not between your teen and you. It is easy for your teen to move away from God, because he identifies God with you. But then he throws the baby out with the bathwater. So give your teen room to work out his faith, and keep him around healthy people who will do the same.

Fanning the Spark of Faith into Flames

A friend of mine told me that he used to read C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia to his young son over and over again. When I asked him why, he said, “Because I want him to see that God and I are different; then he can leave me without needing to leave God.” That made all the sense in the world to me.

So if your teen is raising questions, challenges, and doubts about spiritual matters, support her in this. Ask her what she thought of the church lesson. If she tells you what the teacher said, then say, “Great, but what did you think? Did you agree? Disagree? Were you bored? How did it relate to your life and friends?” Try to stir up thought and response in her, but be careful not to take on the role of the shocked or dismayed parent if she says something negative about spiritual matters. Be real, be matter-of-fact, and be engaged.

If a teen is challenging her faith, she’s putting some interest and energy into it and has some investment. This is a good thing. In contrast, the complacent and apathetic kid who goes through the motions without thinking through her faith runs the risk of abandoning it during her college and adult years. Many kids go through their spiritual adolescence later in life, when their parents are no longer there to give them support, love, wisdom, and freedom.

You may be wondering, What if my teen has zero interest in God, church, or spiritual things? Remember that God created your teen for a relationship with him, with a longing for him. This spark simply needs to be fanned into flame.

Take the initiative. Use your teen’s interest in peers to help her connect with teens who are interested in spiritual things. Do some research to find out which church in your area has a healthy high school ministry, and take your teen there. Talk to her about spiritual matters. Draw out her questions and feelings. Require that she attend church with you; let her know this is something your family does and that she needs to participate. (Chapter 34, “God and Spirituality,” offers other ideas for what you can do if your teen is struggling in this area.)

Good parenting means letting your teen move away from you spiritually while at the same time keeping her pointed toward a connection with her ultimate Father. Far better for your child to ask questions while she is living with you so that you can be in a relationship while she is working through her beliefs.