Where are our children? When I go to my church or visit other churches or hear parents talking about their children many of them say the same thing. Their children have abandoned church and are living a life, for the most part, completely without God. Even though most of these parents have trained their children and raised them in the faith since birth.
The Pain of Christian Parents
One of the great worries, burdens and sorrows of modern Christian parents is the salvation of their children and grandchildren. I hear this so often from mothers who have prayed, many for years, that their children will find Jesus and they will serve Him. This brings to mind this scripture,
"Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice!" Psalm 130: 1-2(a)
Many a night has a mother or father lain in bed, their faces wet with tears, seeking the Lord and asking Him to save their beloved sons or daughters.
Parental Imperfections and Consequences
Part of the sorrow comes from the knowledge that none of us are perfect parents. We make mistakes, some of them bad ones. Our children, our precious gifts from God, often pay for the mistakes we make. At times they are emotionally hurt, devalued, and not given the tools they need to live a fulfilled life in Christ. Certainly God has and will forgive us for these sins, but there are consequences. Living with those consequences is hard, make no mistake.
Trusting in God's Plan for Our Children
First, I believe as parents, we need to pray for ourselves that we stop worrying. It seems impossible, but Peter tells us in I Peter 5: 6-7,
"Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."
It is not just us alone trusting ourselves and our abilities for something, it is completely trusting God to take care of our situation, whatever that is. Why can we trust Him? Because He has shown His faithfulness time and again and because, as Peter says, "He cares for you". This isn't a promise that God will fix everything in the time or in the way we want, but that we believe that He is trustworthy in everything. That God's will is best.
The Hope Found in God's Word
Psalm 130 verse 5 gives us hope,
"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope."
So what does His word say? 1 Timothy 2:4 Paul says that God, "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. " We know that praying for the salvation of our children is the will of God. 1 John 5: 14 says that if we pray the will of God that "He hears us".
The Waiting Challenge for Parents
The biggest problem we have as parents is that we don't want to wait on God. It is the Holy Spirit who calls our children to God. We can't make them be Christians. We don't want to see our children suffering needlessly without the Holy Spirit. We want God to act - now! But we don't command God. God's timing is perfect the Scriptures tell us.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son: A Lesson in Patience
In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) we see a picture of God and His great love for those who have wandered off. The father in the story is a role model for us. When his younger son asks for his inheritance to be given to him now, the father gives it. The father does not stand in his way and tell him he can't go. The father doesn't warn him repeatedly about the dangers of the "far country". The father knows that trials and failures teach important lessons.
Scriptural Hope for Our Children's Return
The father doesn't send friends to talk to the young man and show him the error of his ways. The father does what we don't want to do. He waits. He waits patiently and He waits expectantly, not with worry and fear. We know He was waiting expectantly because the story says He saw the boy returning from "far off". He had been watching for his return. The father had "compassion". He didn't fuss at him about the squandered money. He didn't tell him, "I told you so." He wrapped his best coat around him and put His ring on his finger, sandals on his feet and he rejoiced.
Our hope is scriptural. In Proverbs 22: 6 we read,
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Augustine of Hippo: A Story of Redemption
An example from early church history is Augustine of Hippo. He did not come to know Jesus until he was about 33 years old (about 385 AD). He lived his teens and early twenty's partying and in sexual immorality. From his book, Confessions, he has this to say, "To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I succeeded in enjoying the person I loved. I befouled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I dimmed its lustre with the hell of lustfulness…." (1)
Monica's Persistent Prayer for Her Son
His Christian mother, Monica, prayed for his conversion which God granted her to see shortly before she died. Augustine was a very important figure in the early church. To quote from Bibles.net, "Augustine’s influence and legacy is practically inestimable. He was an African bishop and philosopher who enriched the Western Christian tradition with his thoughtful theology, pastoral philosophy, and rich reflections." Monica, his mother, knew he had been trained in "the way he should go."
Augustine's Miraculous Conversion
Augustine's conversion itself was a story of the Holy Spirit's miraculous intervention. Sitting in his garden he heard a voice say, "Take up and read." Looking he saw scriptures on a table. In his own words this is what he said, "I quickly returned to the bench…snatched up the apostle’s book…and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:13)…. I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something light the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.” (2)
God's Faithfulness in Answering Prayers
In God's time, Augustine's mother's prayers were answered. Praise be to God. We can also trust that ours will be as well. We may not be as blessed as Augustine's mother to see the conversion of our children or grandchildren while we are alive, but we know that God is faithful to His promises. We cannot lose hope, we cannot worry, but we can praise God who gives the victory as we are told in 1 Corinthians 15: 57!
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