My wife, Sharlene, and I have six children. We’re very proud of all of them. They’re all doing very well in life, but some of them have chosen to reject the life of faith in Jesus that we tried to prepare them for during their formative years. And while we’re so very pleased with pretty much all of their life-paths, the path choice of doing life without friendship with Jesus is heart-breaking for us. I know we aren’t the only Christian parents in this situation. So I want to offer some advice that will, hopefully, be both encouraging and enlightening.
Make sure they know you love them. My wife and I received a letter from our son letting us know he had made some decisions in his life, one of which was to not live by faith in Jesus. This news destroyed us and all we could do for several days was cry, hug and pray.
As we told our other kids about their brother’s letter, they all came straight to me. “Now, Dad, you’ve gotta just love him.”
Every one of them – and Sharlene – said the same words. It bothered me that they thought I needed coaching in my response.
“Of course I’m going to love him! But if I get a chance to talk with him, I’m going to deal with this.” I honestly thought I could change his mind if I could just sit down with him.
“No, just love him. That’s all you need to do. He knows how you feel; he’s heard it his whole life. Now he just needs to know you love him.
Trust God with their journey. As Sharlene and I sat at dinner that week with our son and his wife, the Lord spoke very clearly to me, “The reason you feel you have to deal with this is because you don’t trust Me to do it.”
What my family were all trying to say to me God essentially said in a way that cut straight to my heart. Once I understood His perspective on it, I was able to be at peace with not being in control of it.
Back to the idea of just loving them for a second. It’s challenging to communicate love in an age when people equate love with approval. If you love me, you’ll approve my choices; if you don’t approve how can you expect me to feel love. We’ve learned that love must be shouted, while disapproval must be whispered, if said at all.
Don’t accept condemnation for their choices. One of the thoughts that invaded our minds was that we had made some mistakes that caused our son to reject Jesus. Two truths helped us get past that condemning idea:
- Sharlene heard a podcast speaker one day on her drive who pointed out that God Himself created his first two children without sin, placed them in a sinless environment and had fellowship with them every day; and they still chose to go against His plan for them. The point was that, if that can happen to the kids of our perfect Father, why would we take on condemnation if it happens to ours?
- Days after receiving the letter, I preached a message on John 9 (The Man Born Blind). In this story, Jesus’ disciples asked him why the man was born blind. Was it his sin or his parents’ sin? Those were the only two possibilities in their minds. But Jesus opened their minds to a completely different possibility. It had nothing to do with the cause of the blindness; more important was the purpose of it. It was neither his or his parents’ sin, Jesus revealed, but so that the work of God could be manifest. The disciples were focused on the cause; Jesus pointed them to the purpose. Then He healed the man (the works of God) and fulfilled the purpose for the man’s blindness. We learned to focus on God’s purpose, knowing it’s ultimately to give our son eternal life and bring glory to God. We decided we’d focus on purpose and not cause.
Gather an army of prayer warriors. I don’t know how we would’ve gotten through those first weeks after receiving the letter without the prayers and encouragement of so many of our friends. Our small group basically saved our life during that season. That was seven years ago now, and we still depend upon the prayers of our Christian brothers and sisters.
See them as you would someone who isn’t your child who isn’t yet a Christ follower. We meet people all the time who are about our kids’ age who aren’t Jesus followers yet. We never even think of being compulsory or applying pressure to those people to accept Jesus. So why would we think that response would be effective – or appropriate – with our kids? We’ve learned to see our kids as friends. The age of our having authority over our children is gone. And we don’t want to be manipulative parents. We’ve decided to just be friends; that’s all we can really be anyway.
Obviously, I’m referring to prodigal kids who are adults living their own lives. For kids still under their parents roof and/or authority, I’m sure the advice should be different.
If you’re the parent of a prodigal and would enlist Sharlene and me as prayer warriors, please leave your invite in the comments, no names necessary.
Please pray for my daughter. She is hurting and lost. I can’t save her. It is devastating for all of us. She is still under our roof but it is challenging to see her everyday and watch the once vibrant girl searching for Him turn into this oppressed lost child. Please pray for my whole family. We need a move of His spirit.