There I said it. I said it loud and I meant it. I have spent too much of my time as a Christian worrying about offending others about my faith. Almost hiding it from others, for fear of their remarks or fear of hurting their feelings. I have been a quiet Christian, in fear of being a pushy Christian. I have finally learned, I think, how to live in the middle.

Let’s take my 5 year old son. I would spend almost every night trying to read him Bible stories for boys, or kid’s first Bible type books, and he hated it. He would pick fun bright colored books with funny stories. I finally let up.

Since I am really going on two years of being what I had thought I was a “real” Christian, this is all fairly new to him as well. I will start by saying that I was pushing extra hard for my son to accept God and learn really quickly, for they say your children are your pay back, and boy am I in for some pay back, but mostly I just want my son to not have to live a life of unknowing. Anyways back to what I figured out, after stopping trying to be pushy with him, even though he is 5 this was a valuable lesson for me on how to approach others about this sensitive subject.

Recently we started listening to K Love on the radio, and we talk more about it home as a family. But after spending all the time at church trying to get him to look through his picture Bible and read it that way, he would of course make a scene, fight me and say no. Well I laid off, thinking well he is too young and that it is pointless. So this last Sunday I didn’t mention it, we brought his Bible seeing that it was routine. He sat still, he flipped through each page, then he tapped my shoulder and said  “mom, why is Jesus walking on water” of course my heart smiles, but I won’t let him see that, I reply “Jesus was powerful, He is the Son of God, He can do anything” he see’s that a man is standing in the water, and says “so Jesus is going to save that guy”, I say “yes, Jesus is a nice guy”, he smiles and keeps flipping pages. Then we are singing a song or two, and my son pulls my arm and says, on the page where a woman is rubbing Jesus’s feet with oil, “the people were nice to Him too?” I said “yes”, so he smiles and goes back to flipping pages, then my son pulls on my arm, I turn, and there are tears in his eyes, and he says “Mommy, why are they being mean to Jesus?” he was on the page were they convicting him and the next page showed the cross, this is a children’s Bible so nothing graphic, but he got the point, I said “yes dear, those people were mean to him, they didn’t believe that Jesus came from God, and killed him for it.” So he is crying by now, not loud sobbing, so I sit back down and I thank Jesus for coming back alive, not only for the sins of the world, but so I can give my son a reason to smile at that moment, I flip a few pages and then it showed Jesus walking around again, so gratefully I say “but, He came back life, since He did come God, and He got to prove all the mean guys’ wrong, Isn’t that amazing?”, oh man I can not explain how big my heart was smiling when my son’s face lit up and he smiled from ear to ear, and wiped away the tears.

So learning from my experience, even with children we can not force anyone to Believe, we have to plant the seed and let in grow inside of them. We can not do God’s job, we can only do our own. I have been a quiet Christian, and now I feel so grateful for my own son’s heart and soul, that I have decided to not be a quiet Christian. I want to be a loud one, but then again I do not want to be pushy, for that too often than most will push people right out of the way.

What I found, that I believe is my own answer, is to be a proud, and public Christian, let everyone know, but not try to talk it death around people who are obviously not listening. I want to be an example, I want others to see Christ through me. With this said I have been working on my bad attitudes, thanks to Joyce Meyer. I only hope and pray that I can live up to this wonderful task.
PRAISE GOD!
Thank you for letting me share.