Play the Long Game

When it comes to the faith of our children, we need to be committed to playing the long game. Playing the long game means resisting the urge to pressure our children to quickly return to the faith and instead focus on developing the kind of relationship that will allow you to play a role in their return at some point in the future. The urge to help our children regain faith may cause us to do things that will do more damage than good. As hard as it is to do, we need to exercise patience, recognizing that the decisions made by our children in their high school and college years aren’t usually the end of the story. Typically, with age comes wisdom and experience; both of which can cause that which seemed foolish to us in our twenties to seem reasonable in our fifties. Like a lot of things in life, it may take time, a long time, for our children to see the faith of their childhood in a new and positive light. But rushing your child’s return to faith will likely be detrimental. Instead, work on playing the long game by developing the kind of relationship that will allow you to stay in the conversation.