Leading a Child to God

Foundational Principles for Leading Children to God

Being in charge of a small human, a new life, is an incredible privilege and a massive responsibility. We all want our children to experience a love relationship with God and giving them that is a daunting task. Who you are as a person, is the biggest factor in your children’s choice, regarding whether to follow God as an adult. Children grow up to see God through the lens of how they were treated by their parents. If your goal is for your children to know God, then demonstrate to them who God is, by the way that you relate to God. You will treat your children according to the way that you believe that God treats you. Here are four truths that I hope you can experience for yourself, so that you will be able to pass it on to your children.

1. We were made for connection.

The design for connection is imbedded in creation. It is not good for man to be alone. We are created in the image of a trinitarian God who exits eternally in relationship. God experiences abundant life in relationship where He loves selflessly and sacrificially, and He is loved selflessly and sacrificially. God wants to share the joy that he experiences in relationship, with us. The Bible is a narrative that details a covenantal relationship between God and his people, where God provides safety, security, acceptance, grace, and comfort for them and they depend on him for everything.

A baby’s ability to navigate emotions and future relationships is shaped by the quality of her connections to her primary attachment figures. When babies experience emotional unavailability with her parents, it leads to the experience of shame. Shame is a sense of deficiency and inherent lack of worth. Shame is the feeling that there is something very wrong with me, I must be inherently bad. Shame is a preverbal emotion that can be experienced before other emotions. Preverbal feelings can get lodged in our bodies because they are stored as emotions rather than words. This makes them very powerful over our lives because it operates outside our conscious awareness. Later in life, shame leads to isolation, withdrawal, hiding, and coping through addiction, in order to soothe the emotional distress.

When parents are emotional available, that relational connection allows babies to experience joy, calmness, and security. Babies can’t experience them without connection. A newborn’s immature brain uses the adult’s brain to organize itself. Healthy connections lead to the ability to relate to others with greater trust, connection, and compassion. In relating to each other we activate relational soothing, in which shame is replaced with acceptance, fear is exchanged for a deep sense of safety, sadness is alleviated by presence, and pain is soothed by comfort. In meaningful, connected relationships we are able to integrate our emotional experiences into a healthy concept and dwell richly in community with God and others. We become regulated in relationship. We are created for connection. It is our design.

God is emotionally available to you. The names of God demonstrate the way that God relates to his children. He is the one who is present, our shepherd, the God who is with us, our comforter. Be emotionally available to your children the way God is available to you.

2. You are enjoyed by God.

God the Father the creator of the universe loves you, cherishes you, and enjoys you. God not only wants a relationship with us, but he delights in us. God is a father that enjoys and delights in his children. How great is the love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God (1 Jn 3:1). Do you know that you are enjoyed by the Father?
People can be told that God loves them, but until they see it in a person’s eyes and in their voice, and feel it in their chest, they have no idea what loving and being loved is all about. Every person gains a sense of their worth and value in the first few years of life. A baby comes into the world looking for someone who is looking for her. She is looking for her parent’s delight. She is asking the questions: Am I worthy of love and protection? Are others reliable and trustworthy? If babies don’t get those questions answered in the affirmative in childhood, they make up another story about themselves. The first task that a baby has in life is to allow herself to be loved so that her life can be a response to someone’s delight, rather than a life of working hard, trying to earn the love of others.

You are a source of joy! Experience that truth in your walk with God and teach your children that they are enjoyed, because it will lay the groundwork for their future relationship with God where they are able to allow themselves to be enjoyed by Him.

3. Love is not conditional

The love of God is not based on our behavior. As your children become verbal convey to them that love is not based on what they do, but on who they are. They are loved because they are made in the Father’s own image. Their identity is in Christ. One way to teach them this, is to demonstrate it in your own life by turning to God for your identity and value. Depend on God rather than the things you do, or what others think of you, for your sense of enoughness. Experience the unconditional love, acceptance, and delight that God has for you. Remember that there is nothing that you can do to lose the love that God has for you.

Another way to demonstrate the unconditional love of God is to never withhold love as a means to change behavior. This may be hard to believe, but someday your children’s behavior will test you. You will be tempted to get angry and withhold love. But I would encourage you to never withhold your love or affection as a means of punishment, because it sends the message that love, and affection must be earned. God’s love and affection is given with no strings attached. It is unconditional and not based on our behavior. We don’t lose our place in the family because of our behavior. It is possible to discipline and give consequences without a break in the relationship. Withholding affection leads to shame, a belief that there is something inherently wrong with me, I am bad. The feeling of shame leads to blaming others rather than taking responsibility. It also leads to anger, aggression, and a movement away from others in self-protection. Discipline within the context of loving support and empathy, teaches children to move away from shame towards healthy guilt. Guilt is the feeling that I have done something bad rather than I am bad. Guilt produces regret borne of love and empathy for others, which often leads to reparative action, such as confession, apology, or making amends.

When children grow up in homes where love is withheld, they come to believe that their worth is based on their performance, and they hold on to the feeling that they are never enough. It sets them up for a lifetime of proving their worth to others and to God and it makes it difficult to accept the grace of the gospel message. So, remember to always express unconditional love even in the midst of discipline.

4. It is safe to confess and there is always a way back.

Demonstrate that there is no shame in being a fallible human and admitting your failure to God. It is safe to be vulnerable and transparent with God, he does not judge or punish but he is faithful to forgive our sins when we confess (1 Jn. 1:9). The gospel always provides a way back. Confess your sin, especially your sin of finding your worth in the things that you do, the things that you have, and what others think of you. Demonstrate to your children how to depend on Christ alone for all her deepest unmet needs. He is the only Source of Life, The Living Water. Proclaim the gospel every day by showing your children that everyone is in need of God and will always be in need of the gospel throughout our lifetime.  

Demonstrate your humility by asking your children for forgiveness when you wrong them. Again, there is no shame in admitting we are needy fallen people. Teach them to have safe, vulnerable relationships where repentance and reconciliation are the norm.

In summary, if you want to be a good mother, then get to know what a relationship with the Father is like. Experience His love for you and pass that love on. Discover who God is as your comforter and provider. Learn how he loves you. And as you are loved by Him, accepted by Him, and as you experienced His grace, you will be transformed into the likeness and character of Christ. As you experience the way love transforms you and causes you to love Him back, let that shape the way you relate to your children. And rather than trying to simply make them good, love them well and allow that to lead them to the only One who can transform them from the inside out.