Faith in Our Children

One of the doctrines that the Lord has commanded parents to teach their children is “faith in Christ the Son of the living God,” and if parents do not do this “the sin be upon the heads of the parents” (D&C 68:25).  Surely a lot of what we teach as parents is about behavior and helping children learn to do well and act right.  But from a gospel perspective if we are only teaching behavior then we are certainly missing something.  We are to teach our children to have faith in Christ, and to do so we must really believe that increasing the faith of our children will better their lives and improve their behavior.  We have to trust that President Packer’s oft-repeated statement is just as true for our children as for adults, that “the study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than talking about behavior will improve behavior” (see here). 

                Paul taught the Romans that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).  So to give faith to our children then we must proactively teach them the word of God and principles of the gospel.  When Philip found the Ethiopian reading the words of Isaiah, Philip asked him, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” To this the man responded, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:30-31).  In that same spirit, we cannot expect our children to pick up the scriptures and just soak it all in and understand the principles of the gospel; we have to “guide” them by teaching them and showing them faith in Jesus Christ.  We of course cannot develop faith for them, but we can teach them with the hope that they will have “the hearing of faith” as Paul put it (Galations 3:2).  I think that’s what happened to Alma—he heard the words of Abinadi which ultimately led to Alma believing them, and that’s when through “faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart” (Alma 5:11-12).  We teach our children in hopes that we can cultivate first belief and then faith which ultimately is what they must have to stay true to the principles of the gospel.        

                Alma the Younger taught this powerful principle, “And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God” (Alma 31:5).  Do we really believe that?  As we raise our children, it’s no easy task to trust more in teaching the principles of the gospel than focusing on behavior and discipline and time out and rewards and all of the other things that we might do in our effort to get children to act how we want them to.  I think it takes great faith on our part to trust that focusing first on faith in Jesus Christ and the principles of the gospel will do more to improve their lives than anything else.  Ultimately we want our children to have “their souls [be] illuminated by the light of the everlasting word” so that they can, of their own agency, choose to do right (Alma 5:7).