Reflection Sunday: Raising Kids in Faith & Embracing the Unfolding Journey
Sunday has always been a day of reflection for me—a moment to slow down, take a deep breath, and ask myself the questions I often push aside during the week. Lately, two thoughts have been sitting with me:
How do I integrate faith and spirituality into my kids’ lives in a way that feels real, not forced?
What if spirituality isn’t about arriving at a fixed destination but about embracing the ongoing, sometimes messy, unfolding of faith?
As a parent, I want to pass down something meaningful to my kids—something deeper than just rules or rituals. But as I’ve been reading The Anxious Generation and reflecting on how much has changed since I was their age, I realize that faith isn’t something I can simply give them. It’s something they will have to experience, question, and wrestle with on their own terms.
My role? To create space for it. To model what an open, evolving faith looks like. To show them, not just tell them, that spirituality is not about certainty but about learning how to live in the mystery.
Faith as an Ongoing Journey, Not a Final Destination
For a long time, I thought faith was something you figured out—something you mastered, like a subject in school. You followed the right steps, prayed the right prayers, and eventually, you’d reach a place where everything made sense.
But I no longer see it that way.
Faith is not a destination—it’s a lifelong conversation. Some days, it feels alive and certain. Other days, it feels distant, unclear, even frustrating. And yet, it continues.
What I want my kids to know is that they don’t have to have it all figured out. That faith isn’t about always having the right answers—it’s about staying open to the questions.
That doubt is not the enemy of belief. That spirituality is not about performing for God but about learning to be present in the everyday moments of life.
Nurturing Faith in a Distracted World
One of the hardest parts of parenting today is raising kids in a world that constantly pulls them away from stillness, from reflection, from deep engagement with themselves and others.
It’s easy to feel like we’re competing with screens, social media, and the endless stream of information. And if I’m honest, I sometimes wonder: Will they have the space to hear the still, small voice inside them?
I don’t have all the answers, but here’s what I’m trying:
1. Creating Moments of Stillness
Faith isn’t always found in big, grand experiences. It’s found in the small moments—a conversation around the dinner table, a quiet walk, the way the light falls on their faces when they laugh.
I want my kids to recognize those moments. To know that spirituality isn’t just something that happens in church—it happens in how we pay attention to life itself.
So, I encourage pauses. Less screen time. More walks. More time in nature. More space for them to be bored, to think, to wonder.
Because if we don’t teach them how to be present, the world will teach them how to be distracted.
2. Letting Them Ask Big Questions
When I was growing up, I thought doubt was dangerous—something to avoid. Now, I see doubt as a doorway.
I want my kids to feel the freedom to ask big, raw, unfiltered questions about God, about life, about what it all means. And I want them to know that faith isn’t about suppressing those questions—it’s about sitting with them, exploring them, and trusting that the journey itself is part of the answer.
If they don’t have to fear their own questions, maybe they’ll come to see faith as something that holds them, rather than something they have to hold together on their own.
3. Leading with Actions, Not Just Words
I can talk about faith all day, but my kids are watching how I live more than they are listening to what I say.
They will learn more about God from how I treat people than from any theology lesson.
They will understand grace by how I handle their mistakes.
They will see faith not in how much I talk about it but in how I embody it.
So I try—imperfectly, messily—to live what I hope they’ll one day believe. Not as a set of rules, but as a way of being in the world.
Faith as a Space to Return To
The older I get, the more I realize that we don’t “arrive” at faith. It’s something we circle back to, again and again, in different ways, in different seasons.
Maybe my role as a parent isn’t to make sure my kids “get it” while they’re young. Maybe my role is to give them a space to return to—a foundation that will be there when they need it.
Maybe it’s about showing them that faith isn’t about certainty but about learning how to be present in the mystery.
And maybe, in teaching them this, I’m reminding myself of it too.
Reflective Insight
faith is not a straight road
it bends, it twists
it disappears and reappears
but it is always calling you back
not to certainty
but to presence
— Gene Quiocho
2 Quotes to Reflect On
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust
“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel
1 Question to Consider
How can you let go of the need to have faith all figured out and instead, embrace it as an unfolding journey?
Take a deep breath. You don’t have to have all the answers. Just stay open.
With presence and reflection,
Gene
For More Reflections on Faith and Parenting
If this reflection resonated with you, I invite you to explore more at genequiocho.com.
Shareable Thought:
"Faith isn’t about arriving—it’s about staying open to the journey. Let go of the need for certainty and embrace the beauty of the unfolding." 🌿 #FaithJourney #ParentingAndFaith #SpiritualityInTheModernWorld
