Trusting God when your children walk away from Jesus

Rick and Julie have three children. They all grew up in the same home with the same Christian atmosphere. They all went to the same school, the same church youth group and the same Christian camps. All three of them professed faith and were baptised in their late teens. But now the contrast could not be more stark. One of their sons is following Christ and serves in the church; their daughter attends church but is only nominal in her faith; their second son has drifted away from the faith entirely and lives with his girlfriend.

How do you explain the difference? What went wrong?

George and Stella had a daughter called Kate. She seemed a happy little girl, but when she started secondary school, things fell apart. She was bullied and eventually developed an eating disorder. People at church prayed for her, but it seemed to get worse. After school she went through a series of toxic relationships. One day she told her parents that she was a lesbian. She said that if they didn’t affirm her chosen life, she didn't want anything more to do with them. They pleaded with her, trying to find a way to maintain the relationship, but she was adamant. At the time of writing, George and Stella have not seen Kate for over two years.

How could this happen?

For every family in church where the children seem to be well established in the faith, there will be another family where one or more of their children have deserted it. In most of these latter cases, the relationships between parents and children function really well. The kids are good kids who respect and love and care for Mum and Dad. But they have tasted Christianity first-hand and want nothing more to do with it.

And yet, in most cases, no one ever speaks about these kinds of situations. How often have you heard a sermon on “prodigal” children? Has it ever come up in a prayer meeting? Is it the kind of thing that you discuss in the time of fellowship after a service?

Why this reticence? Maybe the parents avoid the subject because it is just too painful to discuss. But perhaps the most common reason for this silence is that parents feel too guilty and ashamed and embarrassed to articulate their pain.

How should we respond?

First, it is good to acknowledge that none of us have got it completely right. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. Almost every parent looks back on their experience of parenting and thinks they could have done better.

Second, in His grace, God forgives our sins and overrules our mistakes. Many of the mistakes that we make as parents are not sinful; they're just unwise. But when we are vulnerable because of the grief caused by prodigal children, the devil will whisper in our ear that it is all our fault. We must not listen to those lies. However, we may have committed what we might call parental sins. Perhaps we exasperated our children or failed to practise what we preached, or neglected our kids because we were so busy at church. If we come to recognise that we have sinned, we can confess these sins to God and know that mercy covers all sin - even our parental sins (1 John 1v9). God does not want us to remember what He has chosen to forget.

Third, we need to recognise that even though the Bible gives us very clear guidelines on how we should bring up our children, it does not guarantee their salvation. There’s a great mystery about the way in which God chooses to save people. Every conversion involves a miracle. And only God can work this miracle. No matter how godly the family is, no matter how expert the parenting we provide, and no matter how devoted or prayerful we might be, we cannot save our children.

But this should not lead to despair. God delights in those who fear Him in His “unfailing love” (Psalm 147v11). We cannot save our children, but, by God’s grace, we can revere Him and base all our hopes and expectations on His unfailing love: hesed. This word describes God’s mercy, grace, kindness and loyalty. We cannot save our children - we never could - but we can patiently and persistently place them in God’s hands.

Fourth, we must never forget that we belong to the family of the church; we are never alone. God calls us to spur one another on to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10v24-25). Our churches should be non-judgmental communities of grace and encouragement where we are able to share those things that distress us most. Perhaps the best place to do this is in a small group or even a prayer meeting designed for “parents in pain.”

Don’t give up. Don’t despair. God loves us, and He loves our children. We can trust Him.

This is a lightly edited extract from When Children Walk Away from Jesus, which offers gentle and compassionate support to parents whose children have turned away from the faith.