Teaching Children to Love God
Children learn love of God by the example of their
parents
Every Orthodox parent wants their children to grow up
attending Sunday Liturgies and staying active in the life of the Church
throughout their lives. Yet many parents don't demonstrate the importance of
having a personal relationship with God in front of their children. If you do
not make God important, neither will your child.
Children observe their parents. They see hypocrisy and
know when you are not following through with the teachings of the Church during
the week. They hear when you take the Lord's name in vain. They notice when you
reserve prayer to weekend service. They notice you only speaking of God on a
Sunday morning.
Making the sign of the cross, lighting candles and
burning incense only on Sundays teaches your children to compartmentalize their
own faith, and leaves them defenseless in a world fulled with temptations and
distractions from things that are of a spiritual nature. If you do not
demonstrate the importance of prayer before your children, you will leave them
defenseless in a world that hates Christ. Your children need to pray with you,
read the scriptures with you, be taught the faith by you.
If you do not make your home a domestic church, your
children will be lost to Christ, and Orthodoxy will not be lived out beyond
your own grave. If they do not see you living a committed life in Christ, they
will turn from the faith, and Orthodoxy will not survive into the next
generation.
Love
in Christ,
Abbot
Tryphon
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου