The divorce of a major celebrity couple has been at the top of the media radar for the past few weeks. While a celebrity divorce is nothing new, the suggestion that the mother was leaving because of the potential faith influence of her husband is. Now that the little girl is six, mom decided to take action.
I say she is seven years late for two reasons.
1. Before considering marriage the single most important thing a couple must agree on is their faith. They cannot sweep this aside not only because it is at the very core of each one of us, but when children are added to the family this issue is heightened. Sure, you may be able to limp around with varying degrees of disagreement before you create life, but once you become a parent, your responsibility compounds. You are modeling life to an impressionable one created if not physically by you, certainly born in your heart. Both husband and wife must be on the same page spiritually. I will not perform a wedding if the couple is not in agreement because it is the number one recipe for disaster, and I don't want to be part of a disaster that is known up front.
Yes, there are other topics couples must also agree on ahead of time, but if you go bankrupt and don't share a common faith, where is your peace and comfort going to come from? God is the source of all, first and foremost. Then all the other stuff like career, sex, hobbies, hair color.
2. The Barna group conducted a survey a couple of years ago with startling results. I have served on several church staffs since then and no one but me gets really alarmed. Those who know me hear me talk about this survey all the time. The bottom line is that a child's spiritual foundation is formed by the age of 9. The little girl in the picture is 6. That means there are just three more years to help her form her life's framework through which she will filter everything related to God.
This does not mean that our kids can't learn more, for surely they will if we are doing it right. It just means the filter is set. It doesn't mean that kids whose families do not expose them to faith opportunities are forever penalized in the future... but it does mean that there is more work to do. God will help us with that. But what if we all acted like the first 9 years of a child's life were spiritually essential? What would the church look like if together we all placed children as the number one priority?
So, if the mother is leaving to save her child's spiritual life, she has now involved a family split on top of the next three years of spiritual influence. Both parents have their work cut out for them because the courts are not going to get in the middle of what one defines as their faith. (At least not yet.) Now this little girl will be exposed to not only two different life styles like most children of divorce, her young mind that isn't capable of abstract thinking is up for spiritual grabs. I hope that she has many people in her life praying for her heart. She didn't choose what she got into, but her parents sure did.
Oh, to think ahead and teach our children how to see the world through the eyes of what has eternal value and not the fleeting excitement of today.
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