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How to Nurture a Child's Faith in God
How young people abandon Christ.

And yet we must confess that only a few fortunate and forceful natures are able to hang on to the positive Christian foundation of their souls, while the majority of young people suffer through a difficult and tormentful process of a departure from God and subsequent return to Him.

I will make an attempt to briefly describe this process.

The stirrings of sensuality and proud self-delusion which arise and gradually develop within the young soul - finally become the dominant elements of the soul. The young soul becomes their obedient slave. Young people look upon this obedient service to their own desires and passions as a manifestation of their freedom, and ardently protest against all attempts to restrict this supposed freedom.

Children in church

It cannot be said that the idols which have been created in the young souls bring them true satisfaction. They cater to these idols, but do not find any comfort in them. They become miserable and depressed, they search for something better, purer, more truthful and beautiful - this gives rise to that thirst for discovering the meaning and purpose of life which is so inherent to youth. This is also the reason for their attraction to various teachings and theories which promise universal happiness and well-being.

Having lost the religious ground of their early childhood, young people make an all-out effort to attach themselves to another foundation. However, all these strivings and noble impulses do not usually go beyond the boundaries of day-dreaming. There is not enough will for doing real good or anything positive in general, for overcoming sensuality, for cutting oneself off from fruitless philosophizing.

(Note: Nowadays we should also add the terrible demonization and zombiing to which contemporary youth is being subjected, and which turns it into robots with emasculated souls, obedient to all modern influences.)

A terrible inner drama finally arises, a dissatisfaction with oneself, a melancholy frame of mind, often a wish for death. (Note: This is the reason for such a high percentage of suicide among young people nowadays.) Overcome with such feelings, young people shut themselves in, forget their nearest and dearest, experience horrifying loneliness. And in the throes of this loneliness they make the most fantastic and unhealthy plans. Neither intense work nor noisy gaiety are able to disperse this heavy frame of mind.

Protopriest Sergey Chetverikov.
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