I once spoke with a disgruntled mother of two children in the youth group. They attended just about every event at the church since birth. You could have set up a delivery room in the church and she would have delivered there instead of the hospital. That’s how entrenched these kids were in the church.
One day, she called me out of the blue. She was at a loss for why her kids seemed uninterested in church, youth group, or growing spiritually. Her daughter— the same girl who once could answer every Bible trivia question during our games— would now play on her phone during lesson time and seemed to have a different boyfriend every week.
At a prayer meeting with this family, I watched as the teenage son brushed off his parents and declined to pray, much to their disappointment. This was the same son who a few months ago told me his favorite verse from the Bible, John 3:16, and quoted it from memory.
I could feel this mother’s frustration, almost to point of tears, as she proclaimed, “I did everything, I tried everything. I don’t know what else to do!”
The Need to Control
Many Christian parents fear these moments as they try to raise mature Christian adults. Parents feel a sense of shame when their children leave the faith because it feels as though all their weaknesses and insecurities are on display for the whole world to see.
When parents analyze the cause of their children’s departure, it can lead to blame-shifting (the public school system, social media, etc.), playing the “what if” game, (what if the youth pastor hadn’t resigned?) or turning the blame on themselves (“Where did we go wrong? What could we have done?”).
So much of our parenting is built on control, which is not always a bad thing. We want to control the influences around our child, so we don’t let them watch inappropriate TV shows. We filter the internet in our home, we get to know the parents of the friends they hang out with, and we tell them not to walk anywhere alone or to talk to strangers.
But control in parenting can easily take a negative turn. When we hear these stories of departure from the faith as parents, we choose to take our children’s lives into our own hands. We assume tight control over every aspect of their world, from the school they attend to the kids they play with to their household chores. Our lack of trust causes us to take the reins and hold tightly. If we are not careful, in the process we can miss out on valuable lessons that help our children grow and develop.
Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.” This verse reminds us that when it comes to building our kids up spiritually, there is only so much we can do. Only God can awaken someone’s heart, and only God can draw sinners to repentance, no matter their age.
As a parent, you can take your child to a certain point through Bible teaching, family devotionals, church attendance, and surrounding them with godly influences. But one day, you might face a chasm. And only the Holy Spirit can carry them across.
Parenting Like the Father
In Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories illustrating the merciful heart of God. He uses the stories of tracking down of a lost coin and a lost sheep, but it’s the one about the lost son where he spends most of his time. You know the story: there was a man who had two sons. One demanded his inheritance, customarily given upon the father’s death, and wasted it in wild living abroad. When he sold himself into slavery after the money ran out, he realized the error of his ways and how good he had it back home. He humbly returned, expecting a sharp rebuke. The father, however, threw a lavish party because of the son’s repentance, to celebrate his coming back from the dead, spiritually speaking.
When the son left, the father let him go. He didn’t lock up the inheritance, he didn’t put it into an annuity that can’t be touched until age 65, he just gave him the money, knowing full well what his son would do. When the son realized the error of his ways and repented, the merciful father was waiting with open arms to welcome him back to the family and celebrate his return.
You may be wondering how this story applies to you as a parent. Do I just have to sit back and roll the dice and hope that they turn out alright like the son in the story? Do I just bite my nails and wait on pins and needles?
We parents must remember that our own lives are accountable to God. Thanks be to God, he has given us all the wisdom and instruction we need in and through his Word. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.
We are called to live out this command in our parenting. Paul tells the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 11:1: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” Can we honestly say we are doing the same to our children?
Ephesians 6:4 says to not exasperate our children but to train them in the instruction of the Lord. But this is only possible when our words line up with our deeds. Our spiritual training is only effective when done out of an overflow of the love of God has poured into our hearts through the gospel, not as a carefully constructed mathematical formula.
Trust the Lord to Build
You may have children who appear to be erring in the faith. You may have children who express resistance to attending church or who question the authority of the Bible. Our parental instinct is often to take draconian measures to control their world so that they have no choice but to believe. But it doesn’t work that way. There is no perfect formula to guarantee success in the transfer of the gospel to our children.
Realizing your helpless condition as a parent in bringing them across that great chasm is step one toward understanding the heart of God for your children. Step two would be becoming an incarnational example of faith, love, and mercy in the home— like the father in Luke 15, and Paul in 1 Corinthians 11— and leaving the result up to the Lord. If we realize that it is ultimately God who builds the house and not ourselves, we might be surprised how he works in our children’s lives.
Interested in learning about Rooted’s parenting courses? Check out Rooted’s online Family Discipleship Curriculum here.
