The Root of the Matter

Pastor German and Dora Gastelum

By Pastor German Gastelum

rad·i·cal 1. Of or going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference. 2. Thorough-going or extreme, especially as regards change from accepted or traditional forms.

How is it that there are millions of young men in the eastern hemisphere so devoted to the god Allah?

Committing their lives to live for their cause, and eager to die for that cause?

What is the formula they use to train these kids to be faithful from the moment they have any shred of understanding?

During radical training in the Islamic tradition, parents separate their children from all other influences and focus them on Islam and the Quran until they memorize and breathe it.

My Catholic mother failed me for my own good. (Or was she directed by The Holy Spirit?)

The truth is she didn’t, for whatever reason, train me to be a radical Catholic.

She wanted us to grow up independent, to choose our faith on our own. Somehow she rather trusted God’s guidance than the guidance of her old religion.

As smart as she was, she must have had her doubts. She didn’t force us to become radical Catholics, but rather taught us to believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. She never punished us in any way for our reluctance to worship saints or idols.

That gave us – me and my siblings – a free pass to seek God, and when the opportunity came, we didn’t feel we’d betrayed our mother by becoming born again Christians.

In her later years our mother became a more devout Catholic, but by that time it was too late to change us. We had already become biblical Christians. She had failed, and God won again.

Those were the roots she planted in our lives, so as I grew up I felt a need to establish a faith for my future.

And when I found it, I found it for life. Once the Word of God took root in my heart it was impossible to go back to our old tradition.

So my dear mother, in her failure to teach us the Catholic tradition, left us open to choose salvation.

A blessing in disguise.

Later, my mother prayed to receive Jesus as her Saviour before going into a surgery from which she never woke up.

She went to be with the Lord, praise His holy name.

Some of us were saved during the 80’s revival. But twenty-five years ago some of my contemporaries – myself included – failed to train our kids.

Yes, we got saved and baptized, we were in our first love, but many of us failed to train up our children in the way they should go. The point is that, for whatever reason, we failed our kids.

Proverbs 22:5 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Where did I fail? During the first years of our walk with God.

For years I was content to simply be a good provider, a faithful husband and a somewhat loving father.

But on my own I did not pursue a closer intimate relationship with God and a total separation from the world for me and for my family.

We Spanish-Mexicans come from very deep-rooted traditions, and we hate to part with them.

Quinceañeras, for example, which are 15th birthday coming-of-age celebrations rooted in pagan traditions.

I thought I was having mercy on my children by not separating them in time from worldly music and television, but in doing that I hindered their faith.

These and other practices hinder the work of the Holy Spirit in our families and keep us blindly connected to the world and the kingdom of darkness. “Pretending to be wise!”

I did not set a good example for my kids. Many times I lost it and yelled at them while a church leader, and even kids can smell a phony a mile away.

Believe me, I am not trying to be hard on myself, or go off on a guilt trip. It is just that we must take responsibility and learn from our mistakes.

So my children followed my life’s pattern of shallow Christianity at its best.

My salvation in those years amounted to hell fire insurance, and I did everything I could to behave correctly so no one would think wrong of me, and so that I could be in leadership ministry.

Sometimes I was even the star of the conference, being launched out to pioneer a church.

Thank you, Jesus! For in time He found His way into my heart and truly touched me and saved me.

Although I felt by that time that my kids were too far gone – out to explore the world in riotous living, as the prodigal son did.

The devil, the devouring lion seeking whom he may devour, moves through the evil forces of the world’s system – the jungle of social media, music, wrong friends, worldly influences (the list grows daily) – to devour our kids. That is, to take advantage of their wanderings away from God’s protection, from the church life and the Christian family life.

He jumps on them suddenly and captures their hearts and rips them apart and devours them, turning their hearts away from God and toward the sin of the world.

Who is the prey? The unprotected kid.

The wandering one, the curious one who is enamored with the ways of the world.

Would to God that I could have a second chance to raise my kids.

Would to God that parents of today would not follow our wrong patterns, but see instead all those wise and well-trained parents who have kept their children on the paths of God, and who can now enjoy the blessed fruits of their love and wisdom.

When I see the then-church teens, now adults, serving in the congregation, and others pastoring and leading

congregations, I can only be so thankful to God that not all the parents of my generation failed our kids.

We know there are no guarantees, and even when we do everything right we may still see some teens fall into the world.

But one thing we know: the Word promises that if we train them in the ways of the Lord, they will have a place to come back, even as the prodigal did.

The devil may cut them and pull them, but if their roots have grown down well, deep into the fear and the love of God, they will stand as the palm tree in the storm.

We live in a day of radicals. Sin is radical. The world system, Islam and many other false religions are extremely radical. Hollywood and the media are radical. We may even live in fear of the word radical.

But radical training for our kids in the ways of God is the only weapon against a radical worldly system that is set to devour our children.

So, dear “now generation” parent, don’t hold back the plough. Live and model a deep, close relationship with God, and give yourself fully to your calling as a parent: to take that double-edged sword and drive it deep into their hearts.

And when the devil comes in like a flood, that standard of righteousness will be lifted up for victory every time.

As Psalm 92:12 says, “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”