But What If My Kids Don’t Want to Follow Jesus….Yet?

But What if My Kids Don’t Want to Follow Jesus…Yet?

Too many of the people in my circle of friends and acquaintances are going through this stage of wondering if their children will follow Christ or chase secular culture. By the way, saying “secular culture” is a more acceptable way of saying “the Devil’s ways”.

Jesus Christ and His followers are markedly different than those whose allegiance is to the “gods of this world”. For those of us with children, grand-children, etc.; this is a big deal. When you have invested your life in loving and providing for kids for whom you’d give your life, only to see them walk away from any semblance of Christian living and Godly standards, it makes for some very troubling times and sleepless nights. Well, not just sleepless but

prayer-filled nights.

I want to offer you the same hope my Lord Jesus has given to me down through the years, and our trials have been mild compared to the trauma and pain many others have experienced or are currently. It is sorta’ like minor surgery. It is minor surgery if they are cutting on you. If they are cutting on me or my loved one, call it what you will, it ain’t minor surgery.

Hope these help you feel secure in Jesus Christ:

1. Don’t forget that you are not the one writing their story. God Himself is writing their story.
2. Remember who is in charge of the outcomes in life. It isn’t you or me.
3. Your investments and God’s Word will not come back empty.
4. If He has begun a “good work” in them, He will complete it. He promised He would, but we don’t get to choose how or when He does it. Philippians 1:6
5. Though we don’t want our kids to ever suffer, they will and at times at their own hand. Isn’t that awful, that we have to watch people we love self-destruct…even for a short time?
6. If I know of offenses I have committed upon which they may be founding their rebellion, own the offenses before God and before your children. Ask for forgiveness from God first and then from them. They may not give it, but you can humbly ask. God won’t refuse your confession. He will forgive. 1 John 1:9
7. Realize that loving our children means the potential of a temporarily but deeply broken heart.
8. Keep coming to Jesus for His love-resource to enjoy for yourself and to give away to others whether or not they want it from you.
9. Stay centered in prayer and meditation on God’s Word. Here is one verse of many, but I thought I would show you this one: Isaiah 26:3 – You will keep in perfect and constant peace the one whose mind is steadfast (that is, committed and focused on you …in both inclinations and character), Because he trusts and takes refuge in you (with hope and confident expectation). Also check out, Philippians 4:6,7,8
10. Keep forgiving them even when / if they never ask for it.
11. They can’t keep us from loving them or from praying for them regardless of how many “boundaries” they establish.
12. You have no control over another person’s servant. If your child has given his/her life to God by placing faith in Jesus Christ, then God is the master now. Romans 14:4 – ” Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand of fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.”

So, dear person of faith, remember that we are no longer slaves to fear: