March 19, 2024 • 35 mins
My dear friends, we are diving into a topic that is near and dear to many of our mama hearts and it’s one that's dear to mine. We are walking through how to love our wayward children. We will discuss the importance of keeping a Gospel focus, connecting with our prodigal children, and trusting in the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. I pray this episode will encourage you, remind you where your true hope lies, and give some practical guidance too.
Head over to ThankfulHomemaker.com for full show notes on all the links and resources mentioned in today's episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to the Thankful Homemaker podcast, a podcast to be an encouragement
and blessing to each other in the role God has called us to as women.
I'm so thankful you've stopped by, so grab yourself a coffee or tea and sit
with me a bit as we talk about how God's Word impacts every area of our lives as Christian women.
Hello, friend. I'm Marci Farrell from Thankful Homemaker, and I'm so glad to be with you today.
(00:31):
Today's episode on loving our wayward children children has been on my heart for quite a bit.
And when I reached out to my newsletter subscribers on future episodes or topics
that they'd like to see on the podcast, this particular one topped the list.
So as I'm sharing about my newsletter subscribers, I'd love you to subscribe if you don't already.
(00:53):
It's free. You get access to exclusive freebies.
I share resources, updates, current book reads. I ask questions,
some fun finds, and then just really things here going going on at the blog and podcast.
And I always love your input as my readers and listeners.
And while I typically send out newsletters twice a month, I usually have a coffee
chat and I call another one a tea time, just a little shorter version.
(01:15):
Lately, it's been more of a once a month and just that coffee chat seems to be going out.
But it's really a great way that we can stay connected, especially since I've
been cutting back on my social media channels and also just my social media updates.
You can join super easy by just heading to thankfulhomemaker.com and on the
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main menu, click on free library.
And I'll also put a link how to do that in the show notes too.
So my time today on this topic of our wayward children, it's obviously not going
to be exhaustive, but I do have quite a list of resources to share with you.
Some of them are going to come up as I'm sharing today, but I have many more.
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So I'll have a full list over at the main show notes for this episode on the
blog at thankfulhomemaker.com.
So I've titled today's episode, and we are on episode 159, I've titled it Loving
Our Wayward Children, Encouragement for Moms of Prodigals. So I pray that this
will be an encouragement to you today, dear mama. So.
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Personally, for me, as a parent of an adult child who's not a believer,
I'm always looking for encouraging reminders to keep my heart focused.
And this short episode, I should say, and I say it's a short episode.
It's actually ended up being a little longer, but it started out as a short episode.
But some of what I'm sharing today has come about from a book that I was really
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blessed by. And it's by a woman named Shirley Elliott.
It was a new book to me. I heard about it through Stuart Scott through a podcast
he did on an ACBC podcast on encouragement for parents of unbelieving children,
and he recommended this particular book.
It was called From Heartbroken to Hopeful, Gospel Hope for Parents of Prodigals.
So basically, I'm into the episode, and that was already two recommendations,
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so I will link to both of those, the ACBC podcast and Shirley Elliott's book, too. do.
So as we dig in here, I first want to start by giving you some background to our family and our son.
Some of you already know this already, and I've shared a little bit of this
in the past in other episodes.
But for those who don't know, my husband and I came to faith later in life.
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We were in our mid-30s, so our kids were a little bit older.
Our daughter is our oldest.
She was about 14, and our son at the time was only eight.
So becoming Christians, it changed our whole home. At the time of our conversion,
our kiddos both made professions of faith, and I have very compliant children.
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We really didn't deal with rebellion issues with our kids during their growing up and teen years.
They were both very active in church, and they loved to be part of the church
family. family, Bible study.
They did mission trips. Our son had an evangelistic podcast.
He played the piano, and he sang on the church worship team.
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They loved being with their church family, and we had some great spiritual discussions
and prayer time together at home.
Jesus was the main focus of our home. And as our children grew into early adulthood,
it was clear that our daughter was a believer.
And my Amber girl, she's now married with three kiddos. She's a homeschool mama.
She's He's active in her local church, and it's a blessing because we all attend church together.
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So my Doug and I are so grateful to get to be active in the spiritual lives
of our grandkiddos on a regular basis.
Plus, they only live 20 minutes from me. So then our son, who's the baby of
the family, he seemed to be a believer, but as he came into his young adult
years, he realized he wasn't.
He thought he was, but it's really easy for kids to do so when growing up in
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a Christian home. I know he had a hard time telling us because he knew it would be hurtful to us.
Our son, my Joshua, he has a great love for his family, and that's something
I'm so thankful to the Lord for. But at this point...
As he's telling us this, it's a lot to take in. And to say that our hearts were
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broken was mild, because I would say, at least for me, my heart was devastated.
So my hope, as I walk through this today, and this was a huge help for my own
heart to put together, and that's probably why it got so much longer.
It was starting out as a shorter episode, but it really did get a little bit longer today.
But it brought my focus back to Jesus. Jesus, and the hope is today to help
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us all keep a gospel focus as we interact, and not just with our prodigals, if we have them,
but with other lost family and friends in our lives.
So ponder that as you're listening. If you don't have a prodigal child,
just ponder all the other nonbelievers that you interact with on a regular basis,
people that you really love, that you're close to, who are void of Christ,
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who don't have a saving relationship with Him.
I think about or even when we're interacting with the prodigals of our friends, right?
And even sharing a bit how to just come alongside those children who don't know Jesus.
Because I can tell you, your friend who has that prodigal child is praying for
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the Lord to put someone in their life to reach out and talk to them.
So something that came to mind as I look back on our time with our son was just
remembering remembering from my heart where to find comfort in the midst of
this, what I considered a storm in my life.
It can be so easy to get overwhelmed and fall into a state of despair or self-pity.
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We have to get our eyes off ourselves. There can be no self-focus.
We have to be self-forgetful. It has to be God-focused.
So I think many of us as parents, we raise our kiddos in the church,
and they really seem to accept our beliefs outwardly, right?
Maybe they really believe they are saved. That would have been true of my son
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at a young age, especially when they are younger and in their teens. Right?
I feel like I heard Stuart Scott use the term somewhere. I don't know if it
was in his book or on a podcast interview that he did.
He used the term Christianized pagans, that our kids can be lost,
but they're Christianized.
Or maybe it's just a facade. Maybe they're just putting on a good face for us,
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and they can be really struggling to keep up this picture look of them being
a believer when they're not a believer.
Believer so when my heart settled
into this news and I really felt I could
address our son and engage in an open conversation about all
that was going on with him and and how or when that he realized he wasn't a
believer one of the things I did let him know was how thankful I was that he
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shared this with us all of it even the hard things to hear first off he really
loves us and he knew that this would hurt us,
and he shared how much it hurt him even knowing that.
But I'm grateful he didn't just go on pretending to be something he wasn't in front of us.
We could at least know what we were dealing with and be able to communicate
and be in a relationship with him that was based on truth.
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My regret during that time is that I did not respond as understandingly and
lovingly and calmly as I would have liked to.
I really wish I would have gone to the Lord first before I reacted and spoke,
before I did all that, before I really had time to take in and pray and ponder the news. I reacted.
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I did make it right before my son and the Lord, but I so wish I had followed
my own advice, which I share with y'all so often, pause and pray before responding.
Make sure that you repent of ungodly communication with your child and make it right.
In hard times of communication, just those reminders to take the time to pause
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and pray before we respond is so helpful.
The verse from Proverbs 25, 11 comes to mind often for me. A word fitly spoken
is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
So ask the Lord to search your heart
in areas even here. are you harboring bitterness or resentment or hurt?
Stuart Scott shared in his book, which I really recommend, it's called Wayward Children.
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He said, If we're not careful, we can take our children's waywardness too personally
and be too focused on their sins, especially their sins against us.
Instead of being angry and resentful toward our children, we are to turn to
the Lord, have compassion on their condition, and be ready to forgive just as we have been forgiven.
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We're to go the extra mile, return good for evil, and pray for those who act like our enemies.
In the tough times, doing these right things will be a pure act of the will,
a choice you make for God's glory, and he will help you.
He continues, he finishes and says, the only other option is bitterness.
So we don't want to become better, especially not towards our children who we love.
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So when we have a gospel focus.
This helps our gaze to be focused in the right place, right?
And having a gospel focus for us as believers is so important.
So whether we're dealing with our lost children or maybe our parents that are
lost or other family or friends that are outside of Christ, we can't fall into despair and self-pity.
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As parents, we need to hold to a plan that's based on God's Word and if we're
to glorify God in our relationship with our children.
If we're not holding to a plan and a purpose and things that are focused on
God's will, we're not going to be glorifying God in our time with our kiddos.
We need to allow the Lord to be our only object of worship and not let people,
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this is a big one because I could sense my own heart doing that.
We can't let people become idols in our lives. It can be so easy for parents
and even parents of believing children to find our children as the center of our universe.
We know the Ten Commandments reminds us that we should have no other gods,
and an idol takes hold in our lives when we find ourselves worshiping or putting
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our hope in something or someone other than God.
Because if God isn't ruling our hearts, then something else will, right?
Shirley Elliott put it this way. She said, If we have found our greatest joy
and satisfaction in our children, then we have sinfully erected them as idols in our hearts.
If you're wondering if you might be guilty of this, she says,
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ask yourself, how am I responding to my adult children's decision to deny the faith?
And how am I responding to his choice of lifestyle?
If the answer is that you are falling apart or have plummeted into an abyss
of depression or self-deprecation, then your child has most likely become an idol in your life.
End quote there. So let me state here so we don't misunderstand this.
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There's nothing wrong with feeling great pleasure in our children's accomplishments, right?
We just need to remember that every blessing in the lives of our believing or
non-believing children is from the hand of God, and we need to give thanks to Him.
We need to love Jesus more than we love our children, more than anyone or anything.
We can't find our identity or self-worth in how our children turn turn out. It needs to be in Christ.
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So how do we connect with our lost children? Because I know for us in the beginning,
it was hard to connect with our son.
This is a whole new way of connecting with somebody that you've just thought
you've known them and been interacting with them and the conversations and all
that is focused on Jesus.
And now everything is kind of changing there.
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But when I think back, honestly, when we became believers, it was something
we had to maneuver with how to connect with all our lost family.
And I think a notion we need to get out of our minds is that if we connect with
them or hang out with them or we spend time with them and just really become
their friends, it's saying that we approve of their lifestyle.
That is so not the case. And I know for our son, he knows what we believe.
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Sometimes I think he knows what we believe better than people sitting within
our own church bodies. I mean, this child knows his Bible.
He knows what we think about him not being a believer. What I don't ever want
him to ever think is that my love for him is conditional.
I think about Christ. He, in Romans 5a, Christ died for us while we were still sinners.
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So if we're withholding our time and attention and affection towards our prodigal
because they aren't living in a way we agree with, that's not pleasing to the Lord.
And if we as parents find ourselves emphasizing our kids' outward behavior and
we're neglecting matters of the heart.
Our kiddos, they're going to learn to fear man more than God,
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and we're going to be raising little people-pleasers who seek man's favor over God's.
We need to hear that reminder now as parents of littles or those of us now with grandchildren.
This goes through my mind quite often.
I don't want them to go through life thinking that God's love for them is dependent on their behavior.
His love and grace are a gift based solely on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
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We need to express this in our words and actions with our kiddos.
The saved and the unsaved. We just finished reading Jerry Bridges' excellent
book, The Discipline of Grace, in our book fellowship at church,
and I really, I know I've stated this book before as a recommendation,
but I really do highly recommend it. It's one of my top favorites.
I personally believe every Christian should read this book, but Jerry Bridges
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reminds us in it that God's blessing does not depend on my performance.
We need this reminder as believers. We can become very performance-oriented.
We can become those little Pharisees, as my husband likes to call us as believers,
that we are these recovering Pharisees, but we still get caught in that Pharisecal kind of attitude.
So God doesn't withhold His love for us when we sin as His children.
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He lavishes it upon us, and He lovingly disciplines us when needed.
As believers in Christ, we need to continually remember that we are forgiven
sinners who were once lost too.
We We were in desperate need of a Savior for our salvation.
Now we are in great need of the Savior to sanctify us and make us more like
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Him in our attitudes and responses and our actions towards those not just inside
the church, but those outside the church.
And I know that can be hardest with those that are closest to us.
So one of the things that was hard for me to grasp was that we raised our kids
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in a godly home atmosphere.
We were a close family. We participated in church together, and we lived out
at home what we believed, not perfectly, but to the best of our ability.
We loved Jesus, and we really loved each other and being together.
We're a small family, so we're close, and we're still close.
Brad Bigney, he's a biblical counselor, and he has a really excellent sermon
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series I'm going to link to.
It's called Hope for Hurting Parents, and he said, A godly home does not guarantee
godly kids, but a godly home can lay the foundation for the grace of God and
the gospel of Christ that alone can produce godly kids.
As Christian parents, we need to trust God to work in the hearts of our children.
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Salvation is by grace through faith alone, right?
Ephesians 2.8, we all know it. The reminder we need to give ourselves is when
children turn out godly, it's only the grace of God in their lives.
I can't take credit for my daughter who's a believer.
It's by the grace of God at work in her life.
Ruth Graham Bell has a quote that I remind myself often.
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I shared some of this in an older podcast episode called Trusting God with the
Impossible. I'll link to that too, and I'll link to her book here.
But one section of the book that was a comfort to me, whether you have a prodigal
or not, was the section titled The Possible and the Impossible.
So Ruth Bell Graham, she writes here, she says, We mothers must take care of
the possible and trust God for the impossible.
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We are to love, affirm, encourage, teach, listen, and care for the physical needs of the family.
We cannot convict of sin, create hunger and thirst after God,
or convert. These are miracles, and miracles are not in our department.
And then she gives us two columns. She gives our part and God's part.
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So I'm going to share our part first, what she calls the possible. It is love expressed.
It's to pray intelligently, logically, urgently, without ceasing in faith.
It's to enjoy being a mother, to provide a warm, happy home,
to minister to their physical and emotional needs as you are able.
And then we have God's part, the impossible.
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Conviction of sin, creating a hunger and thirst for righteousness,
conversion, bringing to the place of total commitment, showing ourselves as
we really are without ever discouraging us,
continually filling us with his Holy Spirit for our sanctification and his service.
So we need to remember that your child or spouse or family member or friend
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is without Christ, so we can't expect them to act or behave like Christians.
What they need most from you is the love and care of Christ shown to them.
We can so easily do this to the lost around us who are not in our family,
so how much more should we love those who are lost within our own families?
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Those who are truly in Christ will endure to the end. I think they're the doctrine
of the perseverance of the saints.
So 1 John 2 tells us, They went out from us, but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
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Salvation is a free gift from God, and it's demonstrated by a life that is transformed,
by that free gift of grace.
Our good God is sovereign, and when we state that term, what does that mean?
Jerry Bridges, he gives such a clear definition of the word sovereign,
And another Jerry Bridges book recommendation here is Trusting God.
It's our current read in our Friends of Thankful Homemaker group. It's been so good.
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This is my second time through it, and I am really just grateful to work through it again.
So Jerry Bridges states, he said, for a clear definition of sovereignty,
he says, God is in control.
He is sovereign. He does whatever pleases him and determines whether we can do what we have planned.
This is the essence of God's sovereignty. God's absolute independence to do
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as he pleases and his absolute control over the actions of all his creatures.
No creature, person, or empire can thwart his will or act outside the bounds of his will.
So if you have a prodigal, you need to remember that the rejection isn't aimed
at you as a parent, but ultimately at God himself.
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He is the one being rejected. Do not get caught up in the if-only thinking.
You can't change the past. If
there are things that you need to seek forgiveness for, do it and move on.
You're not responsible for your adult child's spiritual future.
God was the perfect parent, and even he had rebellious children.
Isaiah 1-2 states, Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
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Stuart Scott stated, he said, The unbelief of the child is their own.
And he referenced there John 3 and Ezekiel 18.
Everyone is responsible for their own sin. And parents aren't to be blamed for
their children's sins. And children aren't to be blamed for their parents.
And everyone is responsible for their own choices.
He continues, he says, Parents aren't
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to be blamed if the child is unsaved because God didn't get it wrong.
If they are elect, if God has chosen them before the foundation of the world, He's going to save them.
All that the Father has given will come to the Lord. That's from John 6 and 10.
So we need to continue to faithfully parent and instruct our children in the Lord's ways.
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We want to be faithful in disciplining them and instructing them. them.
But even if we did it perfectly, which is impossible, right?
It doesn't guarantee that those children will be saved.
But the Lord calls us to be faithful in what He has entrusted to us,
and we need to trust the Lord and not give up hope, even when at times the situation
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may just seem hopeless to us.
We're never seeing the whole picture, ever.
I always say to myself that as long long as I'm alive and breathing,
I'm going to be praying for my son.
And as long as there is breath in his lungs, there is always hope, right?
One of my pastor's wives, my dear Mama Groves, she shared something with me, and I never forgot it.
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And she has gone on to be with the Lord, but she was a dear saint.
I hold to it. And she said to me once, she said, the Lord is still writing his testimony.
That brings me much comfort because it's right. As long as I'm here,
as I said, I'm not going to stop praying.
He still has breath. He's still here. So the Lord's purpose for his life is not finished.
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I don't know the end of the story. I always think about how I came to faith.
In Christ much later in life, and I didn't come from a believing home.
Doug's dad, my husband's dad,
came to faith when he was 50, and he's one of the godliest men I know.
We must never lose hope. Keep praying and loving and trusting the Lord.
Be faithful and do what the Lord has given you to be faithful in.
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So as we're talking about just what we are to be faithful in,
I want to talk about time with our lost children, about connecting with them.
My motive for spending time with my prodigal cannot be focused on me wanting a desired outcome.
And let me tell you, I can get so caught up in that. So this is so good for
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me today to work through this again.
There's nothing I can do that will secure the salvation of my son.
Only God can save and rescue my son.
And too often our highest goal becomes just to, quote, get our children saved,
when really our goal needs to be the glory of God.
And the best way we can do this is to be in prayer for them,
but not just for them, for what the Lord needs to do in our life, in our hearts too.
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This needs to be above any desires that we have for them.
We need to come to a place where we remember that and that we truly enjoy our children.
We need to, as Shirley Elliott, she stated, to, quote, find a new normal with our children.
Obviously, we have a deep burden for them and their life choices sadden us at
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times, but we can't let it debilitate us.
We need to find this new normal for the relationship and we need to move forward.
There's a lot of things that we still have in common, just like we always did.
So you can learn to show interest in their lives and the things that they enjoy. joy.
God has gifted my son in many ways. He may not be a child of God,
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but he's an image bearer, and I need to share truth with him,
show love to him, continue to pray for him.
And doing those things doesn't mean I need to be continually sad or heartbroken around him.
I love to be with him. We love to laugh and have fun together.
He was raised in a home where the truths of Scripture were clearly taught.
He knows what we think about his lifestyle choices. I don't need to be bringing
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this up to him again and again.
Who wants to hang around somebody that constantly brings up your issues with you?
My son knows that he's loved and very clearly shows and expresses his love toward
us, despite our differences.
I'm going to be grateful in this season that we have a loving relationship,
and I'm going to make the most of it.
He already knows him being outside of Christ is hard for us,
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and it was hard for him to share it with us.
We can still have heartfelt conversations, conversations. And my son knows that
Jesus is a major part of my life.
So my conversations are always going to be centered on the gospel.
And so will the advice I give him if he's seeking guidance on anything.
I don't need to lecture or debate or argue about every little issue that comes up.
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When there's an opportunity, I do speak the truth in love.
When I have those moments, I can walk through the gospel again.
There's so much that I'm still learning as I spend time with And I know that
for all of us with children outside of Christ, we want to enjoy being with them
if they're a part of our lives and find as many common areas we can connect on.
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But I know there's still a huge void, and it's hard because they're outside of Christ.
We need to remember to give thanks to the Lord for His graciousness, right?
I think about that. Like, I need to give thanks for things like, my son loves us.
He could, when this all came out, he could have desired to have nothing to do
with us, but that's not been the case. So I need to give thanks to the Lord for that.
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God has been so good to give us common
ground that we can connect on and opportunities to connect with Him.
Very simply, my job is to love Him and move toward Him no matter what.
But my hope is to look and act like Jesus when I'm with him.
I want Josh to know that my hope is in Jesus and not in him.
I always think about, my husband and I talk about just pursuing him.
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I think of how Jesus pursued me.
I want to pursue my son. I want to love him well as I've been loved well by the Lord.
Another area we can fall into as parents of prodigals is falling into the comparison
trap. And Stuart Scott had some helpful thoughts when we find ourselves doing this.
I want to share a few quotes that were helpful to me. These were from day 26
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of his book, Wayward Children.
So I'm just going to read this little, I think I have three or four separate
quotes here that he shared.
He said, resist the comparison trap. He says, not that we dare to classify or
compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves.
He says, but when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves
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with with one another, they are without understanding.
And he's referencing there 2 Corinthians 10, 12. So he says,
when you think you see a perfect euphoric family, you do not.
All homes have their challenges and sins, and each member of a family experiences
trial, even if waywardness is not currently one of them. And he's referencing John 16, 33.
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So he says, instead of comparing yourself to others, pray for the family that
looks as though it has no challenges.
Another Another quote he shares is, humble parents of godly children will tell
you that God has worked in spite of their parenting.
It's only by God's grace that we have done anything right.
And humble parents of wayward children will not bemoan what others might think.
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And another one, he says, if you find yourself being unfairly judged from a
distance, pray for the person who's judging you and look to God and his word
for perspective and comfort.
He says we must be okay with losing the approval of others, trusting that God
knows the truth, we are all needy sinners made righteous only through the cross, and He loves us.
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So our hope and our comfort as parents can only be as we rest in who we are in Christ.
It is a continual preaching of the gospel to ourselves.
And as Milton Vincent reminds us in his excellent book, The Gospel Primer,
he says, Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which
I can view my trials and see the true cause for rejoicing that exists in them.
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I can then embrace trials as friends and allow them to do God's good work in me.
So we can have hope. We do have hope. I shouldn't even say can.
If you're in Christ, you have hope. We can rise above our circumstances as we're
reminded of the power of the gospel at work in us, and we can ask the Lord for
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help to see his sovereign hand at work in our trials.
We can give thanks, knowing that in and through this season,
we're growing more and more into the likeness of Christ.
We don't want to waste our trials. They should draw us closer to Christ.
As we remember, we are utterly dependent on Him for all things.
It causes us to trust Him more, to pray more, and never lose hope.
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We can walk through this trial by God's grace.
God at work in us will give us the strength to respond rightly when we don't
feel like it. We can choose to put on love when we don't feel like it.
He'll remind us He's working all things for good to those who love Him.
Who will remind us to give thanks in and through all things because this is his will for us.
It will be a continual death to self so we can live for Christ.
(29:53):
God will equip us, my dear friend, to live Christ-centered lives to our prodigal children.
My hope is in Christ. It's not in my adult children.
We need to be consistent in praying for our children, and we need to come alongside
those who we know who have lost children.
So if you're listening to this and you don't have a prodigal child,
praise God, but be reminded of those in your circle of friends or your church
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family that do, and come alongside them.
I mean, the best thing we can do for our children is to pray for them and to
ask others to pray for them.
And I want to quote Shirley Rice here on that, just if you don't have an adult
child who's a prodigal, but if you know someone who does, she said,
Parents of prodigals need love,
(30:38):
encouragement, and prayer from the body of Christ, and they need to be reminded
that the arm of God is not too short, that it cannot reach their unbelieving adult child.
When the dust has settled and it seems people have become accustomed to the
parents' circumstances, these moms and dads want to know that people still care
and are praying and lovingly pursuing their prodigal as the Lord might lead.
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They don't want pity, and they don't want to be identified by this trial." So
keep praying for these prodigals in your friends' lives.
And if you have a relationship with them, reach out to that child.
If you see them at a function or somewhere you're out and about,
just go have a conversation with them and take an interest in their lives.
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I think about, for all of us with lost family, I want to share a thought for
when we gather at holidays or events.
And as I'm recording this, this is early, well, it was supposed to be early
March. It's mid-March, and Easter is coming up.
But I think sometimes we feel the need to always share the gospel with lost
family every time we are with them. And that's not a bad thing.
That can be a very good thing. There are moments to do this, and we should do that.
(31:47):
But sometimes Sometimes we need to just love on them and enjoy them and spend
time with them and just take an interest in their lives.
And so often in those moments when we're doing that, the Lord gives us an opportunity
to share his goodness and the gospel with them. And if it happens, do it.
We need to witness with our mouths verbally. We need to, right?
(32:08):
But our lives need to reflect what we profess to believe.
They need to know we care about them and that we take an interest in their lives.
They need to know they are loved by us.
This has a huge impact, especially to those people who know us best.
Our job, even with them, is to simply love them and point them to Jesus.
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There's a song I love from a group. It's called Mercy Me, and it's called Even If.
And the line I love to remember to listen to, they state in it that,
I know you're able and I know you can save through the fire with your mighty hand.
But even if you don't my hope
is you alone and i want to share an
(32:48):
encouraging prayer that i have written in my journal this was from
a book it's called out of a far country it's by christopher wan
and his mom angela wan and christopher came to christ out of the gay lifestyle
but really it's just a great read for all of us with prodigals his mama's prayer
life for her son was so encouraging So those chapters where he talked about
(33:09):
it and she walked through what she did, I just really appreciated that.
But her prayer that she had written, and it's one that I copied and I keep in
my daily prayer journal for my son.
She says, I will stand in the gap for my child.
And everywhere she had child here, I put my son's name.
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So I will stand in the gap for my child. I will stand until the victory is won,
until their heart changes. And I will stand in the gap every day.
And there I will fervently pray. And Lord, just one favor.
Don't let me waver. If things get rough, which they have, I will never give
up on my child, nor will you.
I will not quit, though it may take years.
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I give you my fears and my tears, as I trust every moment to you.
So Jesus is where my hope needs to hold fast to, because truly he is enough always.
I'm so grateful for your time today, my friend. And again, the full show notes
are at the blog. And I do have a request for you that just as you're listening
to this today, I'd be so honored if you would just take a moment and pray for my son, Josh.
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Pray for his salvation. I would just appreciate that.
I've linked to many other helpful resources over at the show notes.
And if you get a moment and this podcast has been a blessing to you,
I'd so love if you could take a moment and leave a review wherever you listen
in. It helps other listeners find the podcast.
Actually, I had a funny thing happen. And my podcast got marked as explicit, which I have no idea why.
(34:38):
And they were very, Apple Podcasts was very good to me. I wrote them and they,
you know, they had made a mistake and fixed it for me.
And so if you see a review or two down there that talks about explicit,
if you look at my reviews, that's what that was.
So I'm grateful they took care of that. And friend, I'm grateful for you and
your support and being part of our podcast community here.
So thank you so much. I am so grateful for you. And I do pray,
(35:02):
my friend, you have a very blessed week.
Music.
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to the Thankful Homemaker podcast, a podcast to be an encouragement
and blessing to each other in the role God has called us to as women.
I'm so thankful you've stopped by, so grab yourself a coffee or tea and sit
with me a bit as we talk about how God's Word impacts every area of our lives as Christian women.
Hello, friend. I'm Marci Farrell from Thankful Homemaker, and I'm so glad to be with you today.
(00:31):
Today's episode on loving our wayward children children has been on my heart for quite a bit.
And when I reached out to my newsletter subscribers on future episodes or topics
that they'd like to see on the podcast, this particular one topped the list.
So as I'm sharing about my newsletter subscribers, I'd love you to subscribe if you don't already.
(00:53):
It's free. You get access to exclusive freebies.
I share resources, updates, current book reads. I ask questions,
some fun finds, and then just really things here going going on at the blog and podcast.
And I always love your input as my readers and listeners.
And while I typically send out newsletters twice a month, I usually have a coffee
chat and I call another one a tea time, just a little shorter version.
(01:15):
Lately, it's been more of a once a month and just that coffee chat seems to be going out.
But it's really a great way that we can stay connected, especially since I've
been cutting back on my social media channels and also just my social media updates.
You can join super easy by just heading to thankfulhomemaker.com and on the
(01:35):
main menu, click on free library.
And I'll also put a link how to do that in the show notes too.
So my time today on this topic of our wayward children, it's obviously not going
to be exhaustive, but I do have quite a list of resources to share with you.
Some of them are going to come up as I'm sharing today, but I have many more.
(01:57):
So I'll have a full list over at the main show notes for this episode on the
blog at thankfulhomemaker.com.
So I've titled today's episode, and we are on episode 159, I've titled it Loving
Our Wayward Children, Encouragement for Moms of Prodigals. So I pray that this
will be an encouragement to you today, dear mama. So.
(02:20):
Personally, for me, as a parent of an adult child who's not a believer,
I'm always looking for encouraging reminders to keep my heart focused.
And this short episode, I should say, and I say it's a short episode.
It's actually ended up being a little longer, but it started out as a short episode.
But some of what I'm sharing today has come about from a book that I was really
(02:40):
blessed by. And it's by a woman named Shirley Elliott.
It was a new book to me. I heard about it through Stuart Scott through a podcast
he did on an ACBC podcast on encouragement for parents of unbelieving children,
and he recommended this particular book.
It was called From Heartbroken to Hopeful, Gospel Hope for Parents of Prodigals.
So basically, I'm into the episode, and that was already two recommendations,
(03:06):
so I will link to both of those, the ACBC podcast and Shirley Elliott's book, too. do.
So as we dig in here, I first want to start by giving you some background to our family and our son.
Some of you already know this already, and I've shared a little bit of this
in the past in other episodes.
But for those who don't know, my husband and I came to faith later in life.
(03:26):
We were in our mid-30s, so our kids were a little bit older.
Our daughter is our oldest.
She was about 14, and our son at the time was only eight.
So becoming Christians, it changed our whole home. At the time of our conversion,
our kiddos both made professions of faith, and I have very compliant children.
(03:47):
We really didn't deal with rebellion issues with our kids during their growing up and teen years.
They were both very active in church, and they loved to be part of the church
family. family, Bible study.
They did mission trips. Our son had an evangelistic podcast.
He played the piano, and he sang on the church worship team.
(04:07):
They loved being with their church family, and we had some great spiritual discussions
and prayer time together at home.
Jesus was the main focus of our home. And as our children grew into early adulthood,
it was clear that our daughter was a believer.
And my Amber girl, she's now married with three kiddos. She's a homeschool mama.
She's He's active in her local church, and it's a blessing because we all attend church together.
(04:31):
So my Doug and I are so grateful to get to be active in the spiritual lives
of our grandkiddos on a regular basis.
Plus, they only live 20 minutes from me. So then our son, who's the baby of
the family, he seemed to be a believer, but as he came into his young adult
years, he realized he wasn't.
He thought he was, but it's really easy for kids to do so when growing up in
(04:54):
a Christian home. I know he had a hard time telling us because he knew it would be hurtful to us.
Our son, my Joshua, he has a great love for his family, and that's something
I'm so thankful to the Lord for. But at this point...
As he's telling us this, it's a lot to take in. And to say that our hearts were
(05:15):
broken was mild, because I would say, at least for me, my heart was devastated.
So my hope, as I walk through this today, and this was a huge help for my own
heart to put together, and that's probably why it got so much longer.
It was starting out as a shorter episode, but it really did get a little bit longer today.
But it brought my focus back to Jesus. Jesus, and the hope is today to help
(05:37):
us all keep a gospel focus as we interact, and not just with our prodigals, if we have them,
but with other lost family and friends in our lives.
So ponder that as you're listening. If you don't have a prodigal child,
just ponder all the other nonbelievers that you interact with on a regular basis,
people that you really love, that you're close to, who are void of Christ,
(05:59):
who don't have a saving relationship with Him.
I think about or even when we're interacting with the prodigals of our friends, right?
And even sharing a bit how to just come alongside those children who don't know Jesus.
Because I can tell you, your friend who has that prodigal child is praying for
(06:20):
the Lord to put someone in their life to reach out and talk to them.
So something that came to mind as I look back on our time with our son was just
remembering remembering from my heart where to find comfort in the midst of
this, what I considered a storm in my life.
It can be so easy to get overwhelmed and fall into a state of despair or self-pity.
(06:43):
We have to get our eyes off ourselves. There can be no self-focus.
We have to be self-forgetful. It has to be God-focused.
So I think many of us as parents, we raise our kiddos in the church,
and they really seem to accept our beliefs outwardly, right?
Maybe they really believe they are saved. That would have been true of my son
(07:04):
at a young age, especially when they are younger and in their teens. Right?
I feel like I heard Stuart Scott use the term somewhere. I don't know if it
was in his book or on a podcast interview that he did.
He used the term Christianized pagans, that our kids can be lost,
but they're Christianized.
Or maybe it's just a facade. Maybe they're just putting on a good face for us,
(07:28):
and they can be really struggling to keep up this picture look of them being
a believer when they're not a believer.
Believer so when my heart settled
into this news and I really felt I could
address our son and engage in an open conversation about all
that was going on with him and and how or when that he realized he wasn't a
believer one of the things I did let him know was how thankful I was that he
(07:53):
shared this with us all of it even the hard things to hear first off he really
loves us and he knew that this would hurt us,
and he shared how much it hurt him even knowing that.
But I'm grateful he didn't just go on pretending to be something he wasn't in front of us.
We could at least know what we were dealing with and be able to communicate
and be in a relationship with him that was based on truth.
(08:15):
My regret during that time is that I did not respond as understandingly and
lovingly and calmly as I would have liked to.
I really wish I would have gone to the Lord first before I reacted and spoke,
before I did all that, before I really had time to take in and pray and ponder the news. I reacted.
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I did make it right before my son and the Lord, but I so wish I had followed
my own advice, which I share with y'all so often, pause and pray before responding.
Make sure that you repent of ungodly communication with your child and make it right.
In hard times of communication, just those reminders to take the time to pause
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and pray before we respond is so helpful.
The verse from Proverbs 25, 11 comes to mind often for me. A word fitly spoken
is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
So ask the Lord to search your heart
in areas even here. are you harboring bitterness or resentment or hurt?
Stuart Scott shared in his book, which I really recommend, it's called Wayward Children.
(09:23):
He said, If we're not careful, we can take our children's waywardness too personally
and be too focused on their sins, especially their sins against us.
Instead of being angry and resentful toward our children, we are to turn to
the Lord, have compassion on their condition, and be ready to forgive just as we have been forgiven.
(09:44):
We're to go the extra mile, return good for evil, and pray for those who act like our enemies.
In the tough times, doing these right things will be a pure act of the will,
a choice you make for God's glory, and he will help you.
He continues, he finishes and says, the only other option is bitterness.
So we don't want to become better, especially not towards our children who we love.
(10:09):
So when we have a gospel focus.
This helps our gaze to be focused in the right place, right?
And having a gospel focus for us as believers is so important.
So whether we're dealing with our lost children or maybe our parents that are
lost or other family or friends that are outside of Christ, we can't fall into despair and self-pity.
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As parents, we need to hold to a plan that's based on God's Word and if we're
to glorify God in our relationship with our children.
If we're not holding to a plan and a purpose and things that are focused on
God's will, we're not going to be glorifying God in our time with our kiddos.
We need to allow the Lord to be our only object of worship and not let people,
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this is a big one because I could sense my own heart doing that.
We can't let people become idols in our lives. It can be so easy for parents
and even parents of believing children to find our children as the center of our universe.
We know the Ten Commandments reminds us that we should have no other gods,
and an idol takes hold in our lives when we find ourselves worshiping or putting
(11:19):
our hope in something or someone other than God.
Because if God isn't ruling our hearts, then something else will, right?
Shirley Elliott put it this way. She said, If we have found our greatest joy
and satisfaction in our children, then we have sinfully erected them as idols in our hearts.
If you're wondering if you might be guilty of this, she says,
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ask yourself, how am I responding to my adult children's decision to deny the faith?
And how am I responding to his choice of lifestyle?
If the answer is that you are falling apart or have plummeted into an abyss
of depression or self-deprecation, then your child has most likely become an idol in your life.
End quote there. So let me state here so we don't misunderstand this.
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There's nothing wrong with feeling great pleasure in our children's accomplishments, right?
We just need to remember that every blessing in the lives of our believing or
non-believing children is from the hand of God, and we need to give thanks to Him.
We need to love Jesus more than we love our children, more than anyone or anything.
We can't find our identity or self-worth in how our children turn turn out. It needs to be in Christ.
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So how do we connect with our lost children? Because I know for us in the beginning,
it was hard to connect with our son.
This is a whole new way of connecting with somebody that you've just thought
you've known them and been interacting with them and the conversations and all
that is focused on Jesus.
And now everything is kind of changing there.
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But when I think back, honestly, when we became believers, it was something
we had to maneuver with how to connect with all our lost family.
And I think a notion we need to get out of our minds is that if we connect with
them or hang out with them or we spend time with them and just really become
their friends, it's saying that we approve of their lifestyle.
That is so not the case. And I know for our son, he knows what we believe.
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Sometimes I think he knows what we believe better than people sitting within
our own church bodies. I mean, this child knows his Bible.
He knows what we think about him not being a believer. What I don't ever want
him to ever think is that my love for him is conditional.
I think about Christ. He, in Romans 5a, Christ died for us while we were still sinners.
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So if we're withholding our time and attention and affection towards our prodigal
because they aren't living in a way we agree with, that's not pleasing to the Lord.
And if we as parents find ourselves emphasizing our kids' outward behavior and
we're neglecting matters of the heart.
Our kiddos, they're going to learn to fear man more than God,
(14:01):
and we're going to be raising little people-pleasers who seek man's favor over God's.
We need to hear that reminder now as parents of littles or those of us now with grandchildren.
This goes through my mind quite often.
I don't want them to go through life thinking that God's love for them is dependent on their behavior.
His love and grace are a gift based solely on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
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We need to express this in our words and actions with our kiddos.
The saved and the unsaved. We just finished reading Jerry Bridges' excellent
book, The Discipline of Grace, in our book fellowship at church,
and I really, I know I've stated this book before as a recommendation,
but I really do highly recommend it. It's one of my top favorites.
I personally believe every Christian should read this book, but Jerry Bridges
(14:47):
reminds us in it that God's blessing does not depend on my performance.
We need this reminder as believers. We can become very performance-oriented.
We can become those little Pharisees, as my husband likes to call us as believers,
that we are these recovering Pharisees, but we still get caught in that Pharisecal kind of attitude.
So God doesn't withhold His love for us when we sin as His children.
(15:10):
He lavishes it upon us, and He lovingly disciplines us when needed.
As believers in Christ, we need to continually remember that we are forgiven
sinners who were once lost too.
We We were in desperate need of a Savior for our salvation.
Now we are in great need of the Savior to sanctify us and make us more like
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Him in our attitudes and responses and our actions towards those not just inside
the church, but those outside the church.
And I know that can be hardest with those that are closest to us.
So one of the things that was hard for me to grasp was that we raised our kids
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in a godly home atmosphere.
We were a close family. We participated in church together, and we lived out
at home what we believed, not perfectly, but to the best of our ability.
We loved Jesus, and we really loved each other and being together.
We're a small family, so we're close, and we're still close.
Brad Bigney, he's a biblical counselor, and he has a really excellent sermon
(16:14):
series I'm going to link to.
It's called Hope for Hurting Parents, and he said, A godly home does not guarantee
godly kids, but a godly home can lay the foundation for the grace of God and
the gospel of Christ that alone can produce godly kids.
As Christian parents, we need to trust God to work in the hearts of our children.
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Salvation is by grace through faith alone, right?
Ephesians 2.8, we all know it. The reminder we need to give ourselves is when
children turn out godly, it's only the grace of God in their lives.
I can't take credit for my daughter who's a believer.
It's by the grace of God at work in her life.
Ruth Graham Bell has a quote that I remind myself often.
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I shared some of this in an older podcast episode called Trusting God with the
Impossible. I'll link to that too, and I'll link to her book here.
But one section of the book that was a comfort to me, whether you have a prodigal
or not, was the section titled The Possible and the Impossible.
So Ruth Bell Graham, she writes here, she says, We mothers must take care of
the possible and trust God for the impossible.
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We are to love, affirm, encourage, teach, listen, and care for the physical needs of the family.
We cannot convict of sin, create hunger and thirst after God,
or convert. These are miracles, and miracles are not in our department.
And then she gives us two columns. She gives our part and God's part.
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So I'm going to share our part first, what she calls the possible. It is love expressed.
It's to pray intelligently, logically, urgently, without ceasing in faith.
It's to enjoy being a mother, to provide a warm, happy home,
to minister to their physical and emotional needs as you are able.
And then we have God's part, the impossible.
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Conviction of sin, creating a hunger and thirst for righteousness,
conversion, bringing to the place of total commitment, showing ourselves as
we really are without ever discouraging us,
continually filling us with his Holy Spirit for our sanctification and his service.
So we need to remember that your child or spouse or family member or friend
(18:25):
is without Christ, so we can't expect them to act or behave like Christians.
What they need most from you is the love and care of Christ shown to them.
We can so easily do this to the lost around us who are not in our family,
so how much more should we love those who are lost within our own families?
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Those who are truly in Christ will endure to the end. I think they're the doctrine
of the perseverance of the saints.
So 1 John 2 tells us, They went out from us, but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
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Salvation is a free gift from God, and it's demonstrated by a life that is transformed,
by that free gift of grace.
Our good God is sovereign, and when we state that term, what does that mean?
Jerry Bridges, he gives such a clear definition of the word sovereign,
And another Jerry Bridges book recommendation here is Trusting God.
It's our current read in our Friends of Thankful Homemaker group. It's been so good.
(19:30):
This is my second time through it, and I am really just grateful to work through it again.
So Jerry Bridges states, he said, for a clear definition of sovereignty,
he says, God is in control.
He is sovereign. He does whatever pleases him and determines whether we can do what we have planned.
This is the essence of God's sovereignty. God's absolute independence to do
(19:53):
as he pleases and his absolute control over the actions of all his creatures.
No creature, person, or empire can thwart his will or act outside the bounds of his will.
So if you have a prodigal, you need to remember that the rejection isn't aimed
at you as a parent, but ultimately at God himself.
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He is the one being rejected. Do not get caught up in the if-only thinking.
You can't change the past. If
there are things that you need to seek forgiveness for, do it and move on.
You're not responsible for your adult child's spiritual future.
God was the perfect parent, and even he had rebellious children.
Isaiah 1-2 states, Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
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Stuart Scott stated, he said, The unbelief of the child is their own.
And he referenced there John 3 and Ezekiel 18.
Everyone is responsible for their own sin. And parents aren't to be blamed for
their children's sins. And children aren't to be blamed for their parents.
And everyone is responsible for their own choices.
He continues, he says, Parents aren't
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to be blamed if the child is unsaved because God didn't get it wrong.
If they are elect, if God has chosen them before the foundation of the world, He's going to save them.
All that the Father has given will come to the Lord. That's from John 6 and 10.
So we need to continue to faithfully parent and instruct our children in the Lord's ways.
(21:24):
We want to be faithful in disciplining them and instructing them. them.
But even if we did it perfectly, which is impossible, right?
It doesn't guarantee that those children will be saved.
But the Lord calls us to be faithful in what He has entrusted to us,
and we need to trust the Lord and not give up hope, even when at times the situation
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may just seem hopeless to us.
We're never seeing the whole picture, ever.
I always say to myself that as long long as I'm alive and breathing,
I'm going to be praying for my son.
And as long as there is breath in his lungs, there is always hope, right?
One of my pastor's wives, my dear Mama Groves, she shared something with me, and I never forgot it.
(22:09):
And she has gone on to be with the Lord, but she was a dear saint.
I hold to it. And she said to me once, she said, the Lord is still writing his testimony.
That brings me much comfort because it's right. As long as I'm here,
as I said, I'm not going to stop praying.
He still has breath. He's still here. So the Lord's purpose for his life is not finished.
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I don't know the end of the story. I always think about how I came to faith.
In Christ much later in life, and I didn't come from a believing home.
Doug's dad, my husband's dad,
came to faith when he was 50, and he's one of the godliest men I know.
We must never lose hope. Keep praying and loving and trusting the Lord.
Be faithful and do what the Lord has given you to be faithful in.
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So as we're talking about just what we are to be faithful in,
I want to talk about time with our lost children, about connecting with them.
My motive for spending time with my prodigal cannot be focused on me wanting a desired outcome.
And let me tell you, I can get so caught up in that. So this is so good for
(23:14):
me today to work through this again.
There's nothing I can do that will secure the salvation of my son.
Only God can save and rescue my son.
And too often our highest goal becomes just to, quote, get our children saved,
when really our goal needs to be the glory of God.
And the best way we can do this is to be in prayer for them,
but not just for them, for what the Lord needs to do in our life, in our hearts too.
(23:38):
This needs to be above any desires that we have for them.
We need to come to a place where we remember that and that we truly enjoy our children.
We need to, as Shirley Elliott, she stated, to, quote, find a new normal with our children.
Obviously, we have a deep burden for them and their life choices sadden us at
(23:59):
times, but we can't let it debilitate us.
We need to find this new normal for the relationship and we need to move forward.
There's a lot of things that we still have in common, just like we always did.
So you can learn to show interest in their lives and the things that they enjoy. joy.
God has gifted my son in many ways. He may not be a child of God,
(24:19):
but he's an image bearer, and I need to share truth with him,
show love to him, continue to pray for him.
And doing those things doesn't mean I need to be continually sad or heartbroken around him.
I love to be with him. We love to laugh and have fun together.
He was raised in a home where the truths of Scripture were clearly taught.
He knows what we think about his lifestyle choices. I don't need to be bringing
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this up to him again and again.
Who wants to hang around somebody that constantly brings up your issues with you?
My son knows that he's loved and very clearly shows and expresses his love toward
us, despite our differences.
I'm going to be grateful in this season that we have a loving relationship,
and I'm going to make the most of it.
He already knows him being outside of Christ is hard for us,
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and it was hard for him to share it with us.
We can still have heartfelt conversations, conversations. And my son knows that
Jesus is a major part of my life.
So my conversations are always going to be centered on the gospel.
And so will the advice I give him if he's seeking guidance on anything.
I don't need to lecture or debate or argue about every little issue that comes up.
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When there's an opportunity, I do speak the truth in love.
When I have those moments, I can walk through the gospel again.
There's so much that I'm still learning as I spend time with And I know that
for all of us with children outside of Christ, we want to enjoy being with them
if they're a part of our lives and find as many common areas we can connect on.
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But I know there's still a huge void, and it's hard because they're outside of Christ.
We need to remember to give thanks to the Lord for His graciousness, right?
I think about that. Like, I need to give thanks for things like, my son loves us.
He could, when this all came out, he could have desired to have nothing to do
with us, but that's not been the case. So I need to give thanks to the Lord for that.
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God has been so good to give us common
ground that we can connect on and opportunities to connect with Him.
Very simply, my job is to love Him and move toward Him no matter what.
But my hope is to look and act like Jesus when I'm with him.
I want Josh to know that my hope is in Jesus and not in him.
I always think about, my husband and I talk about just pursuing him.
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I think of how Jesus pursued me.
I want to pursue my son. I want to love him well as I've been loved well by the Lord.
Another area we can fall into as parents of prodigals is falling into the comparison
trap. And Stuart Scott had some helpful thoughts when we find ourselves doing this.
I want to share a few quotes that were helpful to me. These were from day 26
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of his book, Wayward Children.
So I'm just going to read this little, I think I have three or four separate
quotes here that he shared.
He said, resist the comparison trap. He says, not that we dare to classify or
compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves.
He says, but when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves
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with with one another, they are without understanding.
And he's referencing there 2 Corinthians 10, 12. So he says,
when you think you see a perfect euphoric family, you do not.
All homes have their challenges and sins, and each member of a family experiences
trial, even if waywardness is not currently one of them. And he's referencing John 16, 33.
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So he says, instead of comparing yourself to others, pray for the family that
looks as though it has no challenges.
Another Another quote he shares is, humble parents of godly children will tell
you that God has worked in spite of their parenting.
It's only by God's grace that we have done anything right.
And humble parents of wayward children will not bemoan what others might think.
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And another one, he says, if you find yourself being unfairly judged from a
distance, pray for the person who's judging you and look to God and his word
for perspective and comfort.
He says we must be okay with losing the approval of others, trusting that God
knows the truth, we are all needy sinners made righteous only through the cross, and He loves us.
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So our hope and our comfort as parents can only be as we rest in who we are in Christ.
It is a continual preaching of the gospel to ourselves.
And as Milton Vincent reminds us in his excellent book, The Gospel Primer,
he says, Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which
I can view my trials and see the true cause for rejoicing that exists in them.
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I can then embrace trials as friends and allow them to do God's good work in me.
So we can have hope. We do have hope. I shouldn't even say can.
If you're in Christ, you have hope. We can rise above our circumstances as we're
reminded of the power of the gospel at work in us, and we can ask the Lord for
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help to see his sovereign hand at work in our trials.
We can give thanks, knowing that in and through this season,
we're growing more and more into the likeness of Christ.
We don't want to waste our trials. They should draw us closer to Christ.
As we remember, we are utterly dependent on Him for all things.
It causes us to trust Him more, to pray more, and never lose hope.
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We can walk through this trial by God's grace.
God at work in us will give us the strength to respond rightly when we don't
feel like it. We can choose to put on love when we don't feel like it.
He'll remind us He's working all things for good to those who love Him.
Who will remind us to give thanks in and through all things because this is his will for us.
It will be a continual death to self so we can live for Christ.
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God will equip us, my dear friend, to live Christ-centered lives to our prodigal children.
My hope is in Christ. It's not in my adult children.
We need to be consistent in praying for our children, and we need to come alongside
those who we know who have lost children.
So if you're listening to this and you don't have a prodigal child,
praise God, but be reminded of those in your circle of friends or your church
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family that do, and come alongside them.
I mean, the best thing we can do for our children is to pray for them and to
ask others to pray for them.
And I want to quote Shirley Rice here on that, just if you don't have an adult
child who's a prodigal, but if you know someone who does, she said,
Parents of prodigals need love,
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encouragement, and prayer from the body of Christ, and they need to be reminded
that the arm of God is not too short, that it cannot reach their unbelieving adult child.
When the dust has settled and it seems people have become accustomed to the
parents' circumstances, these moms and dads want to know that people still care
and are praying and lovingly pursuing their prodigal as the Lord might lead.
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They don't want pity, and they don't want to be identified by this trial." So
keep praying for these prodigals in your friends' lives.
And if you have a relationship with them, reach out to that child.
If you see them at a function or somewhere you're out and about,
just go have a conversation with them and take an interest in their lives.
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I think about, for all of us with lost family, I want to share a thought for
when we gather at holidays or events.
And as I'm recording this, this is early, well, it was supposed to be early
March. It's mid-March, and Easter is coming up.
But I think sometimes we feel the need to always share the gospel with lost
family every time we are with them. And that's not a bad thing.
That can be a very good thing. There are moments to do this, and we should do that.
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But sometimes Sometimes we need to just love on them and enjoy them and spend
time with them and just take an interest in their lives.
And so often in those moments when we're doing that, the Lord gives us an opportunity
to share his goodness and the gospel with them. And if it happens, do it.
We need to witness with our mouths verbally. We need to, right?
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But our lives need to reflect what we profess to believe.
They need to know we care about them and that we take an interest in their lives.
They need to know they are loved by us.
This has a huge impact, especially to those people who know us best.
Our job, even with them, is to simply love them and point them to Jesus.
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There's a song I love from a group. It's called Mercy Me, and it's called Even If.
And the line I love to remember to listen to, they state in it that,
I know you're able and I know you can save through the fire with your mighty hand.
But even if you don't my hope
is you alone and i want to share an
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encouraging prayer that i have written in my journal this was from
a book it's called out of a far country it's by christopher wan
and his mom angela wan and christopher came to christ out of the gay lifestyle
but really it's just a great read for all of us with prodigals his mama's prayer
life for her son was so encouraging So those chapters where he talked about
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it and she walked through what she did, I just really appreciated that.
But her prayer that she had written, and it's one that I copied and I keep in
my daily prayer journal for my son.
She says, I will stand in the gap for my child.
And everywhere she had child here, I put my son's name.
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So I will stand in the gap for my child. I will stand until the victory is won,
until their heart changes. And I will stand in the gap every day.
And there I will fervently pray. And Lord, just one favor.
Don't let me waver. If things get rough, which they have, I will never give
up on my child, nor will you.
I will not quit, though it may take years.
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I give you my fears and my tears, as I trust every moment to you.
So Jesus is where my hope needs to hold fast to, because truly he is enough always.
I'm so grateful for your time today, my friend. And again, the full show notes
are at the blog. And I do have a request for you that just as you're listening
to this today, I'd be so honored if you would just take a moment and pray for my son, Josh.
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Pray for his salvation. I would just appreciate that.
I've linked to many other helpful resources over at the show notes.
And if you get a moment and this podcast has been a blessing to you,
I'd so love if you could take a moment and leave a review wherever you listen
in. It helps other listeners find the podcast.
Actually, I had a funny thing happen. And my podcast got marked as explicit, which I have no idea why.
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And they were very, Apple Podcasts was very good to me. I wrote them and they,
you know, they had made a mistake and fixed it for me.
And so if you see a review or two down there that talks about explicit,
if you look at my reviews, that's what that was.
So I'm grateful they took care of that. And friend, I'm grateful for you and
your support and being part of our podcast community here.
So thank you so much. I am so grateful for you. And I do pray,
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my friend, you have a very blessed week.
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