Hearts of the children

  The older I get, and the more I see children and peers around me growing up and making choices, the more pressing this question becomes:

  Who has the hearts of your children?
                  Who has your heart?

                                             

  Lately, it's been especially evident.  I don't intend to point fingers, but I will at least try to describe what I've seen, as friends and acquaintances making choices year by year has blown a great deal of the "fog" away that has (for many people I know at least) long been obscuring a question along the lines of:  I thought I was 'training my children up in the way they should go' - so what went wrong, what did I miss that's led them to make these decisions?

  Much of the reason behind that, I believe, comes directly out of who has their hearts; who has secured their loyalties in their tender, growing years and young adult years.

  I've heard it inferred at times that the people who should hold their children's hearts are their own parents.  And while that's true to a degree, I think it needs to be taken in a slightly different direction.  Parents should be leading the little hearts in their care to where they can find good and true and beautiful loyalties and loves, but parents shouldn't be the end in themselves; that would mean that when parents fall short and make mistakes, their children's little spirits would be crushed, beginning to despair in thinking that their loyalty was in vain.

  No, it would be far betting to have molded and tuned their longings, desires, and allegiances to good and true things that will, when followed and sought after in making good and wise decisions, continually lead them to the feet of the only One who can ever satisfy the things they long for eternally -- the One you introduced them to, but could only hope in the end that they would truly surrender to for themselves.

  Now before I go any further, let me clarify 2 things:

---First, I'm not in any way saying that this training of desires and loves is what leads to a child's salvation.  It's absolutely and certainly only the Holy Spirit who is capable of bringing that about in anyone.  Ever.  But I would venture to say that the 'where your treasure is, there your heart will be also' principle doesn't only apply to material possessions.  It's always possible to follow the letter of the law without any of the spirit of the law; just because it's right, not because you desire to obey.  It's always possible to surrender yourself to God, but live every other minute of life barely on the edge of the narrow road that leads Home, with almost no idea and hardly a care Who is at the end of the road; essentially as the people who will barely enter our Heavenly home in the end with the smell of smoke on their clothes for how close they came to being lost.  (Or the worse extreme: to live by "the rules" and make sure to be a legal, "good person", with the illusion that that will act as your ticket into Heaven in the end, with no desire to know the God you'll spend the rest of eternity with.)

  I believe that it's the guiding of the loves, passions, and devotions of young hearts that eventually leads to them falling a little more in love with our Creator with each wise decision made for good and true things of every size.  Because each of those good decisions is tuning the soul to strains of music, beautiful sights, powerful revelations -- captivating glimpses of the Devine.  And the more we see of Him, the more we fall in love with who He is and begin to do things and make choices out of a (sometimes subconscious) longing to love Him back and see more of His character.  Because we then treasure what we have seen, yearning for more drips of the Holy to sooth and strengthen and awaken our cracked, dry hearts.

---Secondly, before reading another word, don't slip comfortably into over-spiritualizing all this.  Nodding or thinking deep thoughts or even saying great things does not mean you or I have actually done any part of them, no matter how wise and profound and holy the thinking and long words can appear, followed by the feelings of "if only everyone else would ______ ", as if we somehow have it all figured out.  Just because you can think it or tell yourself or your kids about it does not mean you can "check that one off your list" and move on.

  It's a life-long climb, whether you're teaching children (your own or students), or you're working on yourself.

  I don't think I can explain very well what exactly I'm meaning with this guiding of souls to love truth and goodness in this one already long post -- that'd have to be for another time and a lot more thinking.  ;)  But in short, I've seen the most long-term impact in learning to love good things (or the lack thereof) in myself and people around me from at least these specific things:  quality time invested with parents (obviously hard to make up for when someone's already an adult or has a strained relationship with parents); value for and talking often and naturally about Scripture in the family; fostering a love of quality stories and books (notably those with a Christ-following authors, whether or not their faith is directly evident in their writing); avoiding movies that celebrate almost-right (aka "only slightly bad but with a good heart") or easy-to-sympathize-with bad guy characters; teaching to and taking joy in the natural world; encouraging and helping to hone in on each person's individual created purpose, what makes them light up and stirs their soul; and tuning spiritual ears to recognize the voice of God.

  I'm sure there are many more wonderful ways to guide hearts -- but the two that bug me the most among people I observe, are not helping children enjoy literature (in whatever way each child can - of course everyone's a little different), and watching any and every movie and tv show that ever tickles a fancy, regardless of if it's hiding one or a dozen lies inside something that looks like truth but slowly twists it into something distorted but sympathetic, so you feel compelled to "understand" and excuse wrong.  Of course everyone's standards are different, but that can't be used as an excuse to just watch whatever we want, even though it's steadily tuning our hearts to static and away from melodies of our God's hand at work.  But that's a whole other difficult topic that's not for right now.  :P

  Anyway, I'm sure all this could be pulled apart and expanded and explained much more and much better than I'm doing here; but it's such a gigantic subject.  I'm not really even sure how to wrap the thought up.  But it's been paining me to see how easily acquaintances and peers slip away.  And usually because their heart's strings were being tied, one by one, to a million little sins, or lies, or hurts, or confusions, or "safe rules", that grow and expand with passing days, until they make some decision you never thought they'd make.  It becomes clear, though, if you're looking closely beyond the surprise of it all, that the only things their hearts were tied and trained to, were fallen logs or broken bricks; nothing that can hold them firm and teach them to swim when floods come.  And I think the words of this well known hymn, one of my favorites, says it quite beautifully:

  "Oh to Grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be.
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wondering heart to Thee--
Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it!  Prone to leave the God I love!
Here's my heart, Lord; take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above!

  Come, Thou Fount of every blessing; tune my heart to sing Thy grace.
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above--
Praise the Mount; I'm fixed upon it, Mount of God's unchanging love."

                                                                                              (—'Come Thou Fount', traditional)

(As always, all pictures and quotes, etc. belong to their original owners, and are here only for inspiration -- all other thoughts are my own.)