Faith and Responsibility

   It’s so easy to think we have some responsibility for the faith life of others.  In fact our only role in helping others in their faith life is one of prayer and support.  We need to pray for them, give them a Christian example by our lives and be there for them when they struggle.  But we can’t give them faith, only God can do that.

   I know parents who seem tortured because their children no longer practice their faith; they seem to have lost it somewhere.  Those parents think it is somehow their fault.  They feel that they must have done something wrong.  Yet it is every individual’s responsibility to attend to their soul and its’ eternal destination.  No one can do that for them.

   It is the Holy Spirit who gives faith and nurtures it.  If one does not wish to follow the Spirit within, there is very little we can do.  Faith isn’t something we can demand of another; it is a gift of the Spirit.  Like most gifts it can be refused.  Only the one who rejected it can return and accept it.

   Pray for your children who have left the faith and for all who have lost or never found faith.  Not just occasionally, but daily, even many times daily.  Prayer is the most powerful tool we have in matters of faith.  The rest is up to God and the Holy Spirit.  But always remember, God works in His own time, not ours.  Our prayers of today may take years to produce the fruits of faith in another.

Holy Spirit, we pray to You for those without faith.

Open their hearts to the love of God.

Give them the faith that leads to salvation.

Amen