Thursday: Fighting for Your Prodigal Child
Read Proverbs 22:6. What is your understanding of this passage? Is this a guarantee, a promise, or a probability?
Sometimes as a parent you do everything you should—spend time teaching your children the right things, live according to your knowledge of God, send them to good schools, attend church regularly, become involved in mission work with them—and they end up leaving the faith in which you raised them.
Image © Jeff Preston from GoodSalt.com
The amount of pain is excruciating, and there is not a moment of rest from your concern for their salvation. The cause is not necessarily the parent’s fault. Children have minds of their own and are ultimately responsible to God for their actions.
Some have taken the words “when he is old he will not depart from it” as a promise, a guarantee that proper parenting will always result in their child’s salvation. But Proverbs often gives us principles and not always unconditional promises. What we can take out of this text is the assurance that the lessons learned in childhood will last a lifetime. Every child reaches an age when they either accept the heritage of their parents as their own or reject it. Those parents who were careful to provide their children with godly training have the assurance that what they taught their children will always be with them, and if or when their children walk away, the seeds they planted in their hearts will continuously be in them calling them home. Being a good parent is our choice; how our children turn out is theirs.
What should a parent do when a child goes astray? Turn your children over to God in earnest prayer. If anybody understands your pain, it is God, whose children, by the billions, have turned their backs on Him, the perfect parent. You can support your prodigals with love and prayer and be ready to stand alongside them as they wrestle with God.
Don’t be too embarrassed to ask for support and prayer, don’t blame yourself, and don’t be so focused on the prodigal that you forget the rest of the family. Parenting a prodigal can divide your household; so, build a unified front with your spouse and set clear boundaries for your child. Remember that God loves your child more than you do, look to a brighter future, and accept that your child is God’s work in progress.
| It’s only natural in such a situation to blame yourself. And even if you have made mistakes, why is it better to focus on the future and on the promises of God? See Phil. 3:13. |
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To parents is committed the great work of educating and training their children for the future, immortal life. . . . No work ever undertaken by man requires greater skill than the proper training and education of youth and children."—Child Guidance, pp. 38, 39.
We are advised to keep training and educating our children in the right way.We are not to give up doing our best in moulding and chiselling our children to be dependable chrisrians.
My own dad is a church elder,my elder brother is a church elder and am also a church elder of different churches but I have a brother who departed from the right path.We keep praying for him with confidence that someday he will change!
Psalm 78 is a hymn for the home. It teaches that the responsibility of each parent or grandparent is that our kids & grandchildren know God’s Word, that they understand that the key to success is to know the Lord, to love Him, & to be obedient to Him.
We ought to love the unconditionally...as repellent as they may beans parents we need to be as close to them as possible.
Pray for them,encourage them fast on their behalf.
Job in the old testament is a practical example who fasted and prayed and even offered burnt offerings for his children!
The church leaders children.
Look the way they dress, the way they eat the way talk, are these the pastor's kids?
Yes,they are. Don't blame the pastor, it is not necessary his fault. Children have mind of their own and are ultimately responsible before God for their actions.
Did you hear what the church elder's kids did?
Yes, I heard. But remember children reach an age when they either accept the heritage of their parents as their own or reject it.
Did you hear what your kids did?
Yes I did. But remember being a good parent is my choice; how my children turn out is theirs.
The 'prodigal' habits or behaviour displayed or taken up by a child can stem from either of these: a. parents oversight(lack of proper attention, neglect, one-sided training where the parent is seen as a dictator instead of a confidant or a friendly instructor etc.) b. environmental influence (friends, the need to blend with latest trends etc.)
Identifying any of these as a cause for a child's deviation from the right path will greatly aid in his or her redirection.
So, in addition to unceasing prayers which is the base and most viable effort in redirection, parents/instructors should make conscious efforts to starve those bad influencers (causes of deviation as stated above)while keeping open arms, ever ready to receive the lost but now found child.
May God grant us wisdom to instruct our children rightly, and keep them steafast on the path of righteousness.
Learn this lesson from the bitter experience of Eli, Church Ministers should know that their first and foremost field of ministry is their immediate family. Most neglect their children in pursuit of the "Ministry".
Some years ago I taught my Pastor's daughter a song, she learnt it well and could sing it beautifully. I asked her to sing it to her father when she got home and my heart was broken by her response. She said "My father does not have time for me." This was a 10 years old girl. Her mother, the pastor's wife was away from home all weekdays. She worked at the seminary in another town, her father, my church pastor who was supposed to care for the children had no time for them.
He was a good pastor loved by all the church members but his family was suffering. I sent a message to him telling him of the need to spend more time with his children. I don't know how the rest went.
I hope this story will touch someone. May God help us set our priorities right in Jesus name - Amen.
Actually thats a great topic because ours as parents is to make sure that our children are well trained even if they happen to have their own lives at some time and when they are back they pick it from where you taught them about christ than not teaching them at all.