This morning I asked Owen if he had made his lunch for school yet. He stumbled around an answer something like, “Last week in City Groups (a bi-monthly youth meeting with kids from church) they said maybe we should fast for lunch… maybe?” He was looking at me questioningly, and I was looking at him confused.
“Are you asking me for permission, or asking if I think it’s a good idea?” I responded.
He wanted me to tell him what to do. I know that’s nice, that I have a teenage boy who wants me to tell him what to do, but I felt this was something that should be his decision. So I asked him if he knew what fasting was for, and if he had a reason to do it. He didn’t seem to know what it was for.
We went straight to Isaiah 58 and I read the following:
6 “Is this not the fast which I choose,
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
7 “Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
There was more, but for the sake of expediency I’ll keep it to two verses. I explained that you can fast and not see results because you are doing it simply out of a motive that isn’t grounded in the Word. It may not be selfish or wrong, but if it isn’t from the Word it won’t have life in it. Those verses above tell us that fasting is about giving to others, more than it is about depriving ourselves. It is in the depriving that we find we are able to give. Just as if I gave my lunch money to someone who needed it. I told him that today, because he neither has lunch money himself, nor does he know anyone who actually needs his packed lunch that isn’t the approach he needs to take. For him, it’s about time. If he skips his lunchtime so that he can spend it in prayer-time, he is fasting with a purpose.
We talked about people who need prayer for breakthrough, and freedom from bondage, and people who need salvation, and then I left the decision up to him. He went downstairs and made himself a lunch. I’m assuming he didn’t fast lunch today. I could be disappointed by this. I could be sad that my child isn’t compassionate enough to pray during his lunch hour, and I could be angry that I spent all that time explaining something and then he disregarded my information.
But I’m not.
I wanted him to make a decision. I love it when he chooses what I would choose, but I never want him to choose it simply because I would. I want him to know the voice of the Holy Spirit. I want him to respond to the compassion God has placed in his own heart. I want him to walk his own path of obedience. And I trust the God I gave him to 16+ years ago, to draw him in ways my expectations will be utterly blown away by.
Raising teens is a very different career than raising children. I am no longer giving them commands, I am giving them guidance. It’s harder in some ways, because I’ll be honest, when I could see that he wanted me to tell him what to do, I wanted to say, “that’s a great idea!” and I wanted to give him that nudge into it that he seemed to want from me. But I’d rather see him weigh the information he has and use his liberty to test his own heart, walk his own path, and find that God is doing more of the leading than I am.