I did not grow up in the church. I was 20 years old when the Lord redeemed me. My husband, on the other hand, is as old as our current church, 44 years. His parents were among the charter members. This reality creates interesting situations. We are a good team in that respect, having seen both sides. For me, though, it creates a terrible frustration at times.
Shortly after I became a Christian, I was sitting in a with a group of teenagers. I don't remember exactly why I was there, because I was older than they. My in-laws were youth leaders at the time, and perhaps I was with them. Anyway, in the course of this "sharing time" one of the teenagers was crying, and sharing how she led a "double life." I really didn't entirely understand what she meant, but now that I am a bit more seasoned, have teenagers and work with teenagers, I understand what that phrase means.
I've heard it a lot lately.
The fact of the matter is that teenagers will "play church." They will do what their parents want, obey, conform and participate in church life, all the while not even sure that they know why they are doing what they are doing. It is only a few years after they leave the nest that they realize it. At that point, they may be in open rebellion, having been freed from the need to pretend any longer. Or they may be in a position when they have truly embraced their faith, and they look back and see how they were just coasting as a teenager. I know some of both.
When I am confronted with various young people who share that they have been struggled with faking it, I wonder in the back of my mind how many there are out there who are doing it but don't say. I wonder how prevalent it is. And I wonder why some are more comfortable doing it that others.
It's hard for me to understand how this works because as a teenager, I longed for someone to tell me what truth was. I longed to know God. I was not handled my religion on a silver platter in the confines of a warm church environment, complete with an awesome sound system, fun and games, and "programs." I wasn't brought to church and taught. It was a struggle. Somtimes, this inability to relate to the complacent church kid is such an inhibition for me as I talk to them. It requires so much mercy on my part, because most of the time I want to say, "Are you kidding me?"
Recently, I had an exchange with a young person about "finding oneself." The claim was that now that he was freed from the provincial confines of his family and church life, he could discover who he is. My comment was that I felt this preoccupation with knowing who we are is a luxury; only people with financial resources and time on their hands can spend a lot of time looking for themselves. A good portion of the world spends its days eking out a living. My uncle, who is a farmer, used to say this when people discussed having to "find themselves." He would say, "If you want to find yourself, come here and clean out my pig barns and you will find yourself in a hurry."
A living faith manifests itself in fruit. In our own lives, we must evaluate whether or not we see fruit. In helping a young person see the fruit, it is so tempting to make it all about what they do and now how they are being transformed. Perhaps that is why "faking it" becomes easy; is performance what we as adults are measuring them by?
I will continue to roll this over in my mind.
