Does God Honor Worship When My Child is Mad?

I think we have all had the experience of dealing with a mad child, but what if that child is mad, not in the home, not in the car line, not in the grocery store but in worship? For me this is a time when I’d like to selfishly seek the Lord, praise Him through music, and overall be refueled for the week ahead. But this child was grumpy, and it was not something that was going to blow over quickly. Unfortunately, the longer I tried to ignore it the more frequent the foot stomps, huffing, and folded arms became. Not only was the child’s heart sinning, but mine was too. The sin of sloth, the sin of idolatry to my comfort, the sin of wanting to control my child’s actions were all starting to swirl within me.

The spirit stirred in my heart and prompted my thinking. Do I sit in the service and ignore my child causing my heart to sin more and my child’s; while seeming to be the happy Christian family, I’d like most people to think we are? Do I give my child something else to do? Or do I pull the child out of service to ask God to do the hard work of correction, repentance, and reconciliation? Not just in my child, but in my heart too. Is it worth the effort and losing “my time” of worshiping the Lord that seems to be so fleeting these days?

In this case taking my child out honored the Lord more and likely showed more of the love of Christ, than trying to get them to sit stock still and have the decorum that I’d like to have on that Sunday. Ask questions of your child and yourself. Do you think God is pleased with your worship? Do you think God cares about your worship?

Scripture tells us that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. (Luke 10:27) In those moments, sitting in a pew with grumpy hearts, we were breaking all those commands. My heart was not in a good place because I wanted control, and my child’s heart was worshiping the desire to not obey by listening and writing during the sermon as I asked. And I certainly was not loving my little neighbor as myself.

Let your children know that worship is serious, God honors our attitude and asks that we give Him our hearts even if those hearts are reluctant. Ultimately, we prayed that the Lord would change my child’s heart and mine. We also acknowledged that only God could change hearts. This is good and holy work that God calls parents to. The Lord honors this hard work and asks that we teach our children how to use prayer and scripture to turn our hearts towards Him, the act of reprimand is ultimately the most loving thing we can do as parents.

“But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Psalm 34:10-11