Will My Children Walk With God?

Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt

 In ministry, I have often been asked for prayer by parents who are very concerned and often emotionally distraught over their children. They did their best to raise their children to know and love the Lord, but now struggle as they watch their adult children seem to go astray from the life of Christ they grew up and were raised in. This is more common than not. Why would that be? Doesn't the word of God promise, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it?"Proverbs 22:6 (NIV)

 

The answer is yes! That is a promise of God and one that our faith must stick firm to despite what we see our children doing! As children become young adults and enter into the world without you by their side, they are amongst the non-religious, atheists, and lovers of false gods. Each of those people has their own personal view of God and happily challenges the belief system of Christians. The debates go back and forth and most young adults are not prepared with the answers to support the kinds of questions that come at them. They can end up feeling foolish and realize, they don’t even really know what they believe, and why. They have grown up in your faith but don’t really have their belief systems down for themselves.

 

Every individual needs to experience the Lord for his or herself – including your children. You may be like Renee and I. We know our children had real experiences in the Lord growing up. We began training them as toddlers. As teenagers, they would often share their hearts on scripture that they had read, saying powerfully anointed things that ministered to our hearts. Renee and I would often rejoice in prayer, thanking God for the things He was teaching them.

 

Each of our children, as they had grown to become adults out on their own, had to come to grips with owning their own faith. They were no longer under our direct parental authority. They would now make their own life decisions. They’ve had to make decisions on their own about what they believe. They were challenged by their peers in college, and by worldly associates in the workplace who have little or no faith in God. They would have to learn to live for the Lord from their own volition, not from pressure from Renee and I to have some kind of religious faith. That is what children end up with when pressured to follow the Lord by their parents or others. They end up with religion.

 

What do I mean they ‘end up with religion’? When children are pressured to have a religious life because you want them to, they end up going through motions just to please you and others. They don’t do so out of a love for God, a personal relationship with Jesus, or a heart conviction of the kind of life they should live. They end up being religious – going through religious motions while living a worldly lifestyle – two things that should be contradictory! The world is full of religion and that is why the non-religious world thinks the religious world is so hypocritical. They see religious people professing to love God, yet their lifestyle contradicts that truth as they live as worldly as anyone without God. We don’t want that to happen to our children. We want them to know and love God because they believe and embrace Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and the Word of God as their living truth to guide their life choices.

 

 

Oh the challenges of the parent that has to watch their adult child go through the stage of figuring out what they believe. You no longer have the right or say in their life that you did when they were younger, growing up under your guidance. They are adults and you have to develop a real friendship with them the same as you would with anyone else. That is the only way they will listen to you with shutting you out. If you preach at or yell at or condemn them, they will shut you out. Yet you can’t stand to see them make wrong choices or decisions. Welcome to God’s world. He feels the same way about us, yet He doesn’t interfere or manipulate us. (If you’ve been told He does, you’ve been told wrong.) He doesn’t want us to make wrong choices. He wants us to draw near to Him and walk in His grace and guidance. Yet, sometimes you just do your own thing. And so do your children!

 

So, what’s the answer? I’ll give you four things!

First, set your heart like flint that love never fails. Love might look like it sometimes fails, but it doesn’t. Ultimately love will do its work. Love does not manipulate. It is kind, speaks encouragement, and is full of faith. You have to love your children during these years whether it’s a long duration or short. And even if they drive you crazy! Speak good over them. Call things that aren’t as though they are!

 

Secondly, you have to pray for them daily with sincere and true heart faith – not out of fear! Believe that God is working to draw them to Himself. Your prayers will cover them and protect them as much as possible, and in more ways than you can imagine. In most cases, God will use someone else to be the voice of reason and anointing to get through to them. Pray for the laborers that God sends across their path. They are working for you! And pray against the demonic forces trying to blind their eyes. 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV) “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Pray that the angelic host of Heaven will surround them during this time. Hebrews 1:14 (NIV) “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

 

Third, show emotional stability! You cannot afford to blow it by letting them drag your emotions into their muddy pit. Sometimes in this searching stage, they get obnoxious, cruel, manipulative, and make seemingly horrible choices. Establish clear boundaries for yourself. Don’t say or do what you will regret, and don’t let them drag your emotions and actions into that place. You are the mature adult right? So keep your emotions in check. Show the love of Jesus the best you are able. Keep in mind that one day they will show up, say they are sorry, and have come to their senses as did the prodigal son.

 

Finally, don’t you yourself live a hypocritical Christian lifestyle. Your children and the world are watching you! Don’t be a Pharisee and don’t be judgmental. Just life your life in a way that you hope they might be proud of and desire to emulate!

 

In conclusion: remember that as much as you love your children, Jesus loves them more and is working through your prayers behind the scenes! Love and prayer are two incomparable forces surpassing all others!

 

1 Corinthians 13:8 & 13 (NIV) “Love never fails… and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

 

In His Love,

 

Pastor Tim Burt

 

If you can’t view this post, click here.

 

If Fresh Manna is a blessing to you, let me know how. I’d love to hear from you! Tell Pastor Tim here: 

Published by Pastor Tim Burt
Copyright© 2012 All rights reserved
http://readfreshmanna.blogspot.com/

Forward this email to a friend

*With gracious permission from Pastor Tim Burt to Good Shepherd Church to use this wonderful post.

Why not read Fresh Manna?

Jesus knows our sorrows and our joys

O Holy Night.
This is a song we sing at Christmas time. But once Christmas is over, what happens?
The song is as relevant as ever, each day of the year.

As Mary in the last stage of pregnancy sat on the donkey's back with Joseph leading her through Bethlehem, her Baby within brushed closely past so many of us.
Beggars, sitting hopeless and hungry in the streets, lives tattered and poor with remembered pain and loss.
Soldiers, brusque and military, with painful memories of suffering and death of loved ones in their minds as they marched along, far from home.
People from Israel's proud tribes, coming home to fulfil the census; mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers; boys, girls and babies.
Innkeepers and shepherds; bakers and carpenters; road layers and taxmen; prophets and scribes.

As the Baby Jesus brushed past them, the God within Him silently realised;
So this is what it is like.
This is what it is like to be human, in the last stages just before birth, being pushed out into an unfriendly and at times hostile and dangerous world.
These are the sounds I hear through the protective womb of my mother;
wails of pleading and hopelessness from beggars, cold in the night of the streets.
Commands and brusqueness from marching soldiers, lonely and far from home - never far from the possibility of battle or death.
The loneliness and panic of my earthly father Joseph as he tries to protect me during my birth by finding me a place to stay.
The terror of my Mother as she battles and gasps for breath as the birthing process starts.

And so the earthly Mission of God made man began from the very first moment, as He joined the throngs of His created humanity in their search for the final meaning and destiny of their lives.

And during that Holy Night after Jesus was born, and lay wide eyed and looking with love into the eyes of His earthly Mother, the God within Him thought;
So this is what love for your mother feels like.
This melting, helpless flood of emotion that you have for no other.
A bond from her body to yours which has been cut when the umbilical cord has been cut; but the emotional cord bonding her heart to yours is never, ever cut. 
Even when she found herself unable somehow to commit to being your daily carer, and part of your daily life.
Even if you are adopted or fostered, or aborted;
she always remains your mother.

And Joseph, His earthly protector and father.
As Jesus looked into the sturdy and loving eyes of His mentor and the man who would teach Him on earth what it means to be a good man and a caring protector, the God within Him felt;
safe and protected by the man who would give his very life to protect the newly birthed woman and the infant son who depended on his strength, courage and wisdom to keep them safe in their vulnerability from the dangers that can befall.

And Jesus, Saviour and strong Protector of all, destined to give His Life for us in order to re-establish the bond of Parenthood and Love with God, which had been so cruelly broken by humanity's faithlessness towards our Creator, began His Mission on that Holy Night.
The Holy Night which forms the joy of each and every day of our year.

Let us rejoice that this tiny Baby has shown us once again how to reach the personal nobility which lies dormant within our souls, despite the Fall; and helps us with His wondrous grace to reach the full nobility of our souls and eternal life with God in Heaven.

*Photograph taken by Rev Catherine Nicolette with permission