Hanging on for Dear Life

Because I believed my husband and I had been good to our children, and particularly because we had raised them in church and sought to teach them to follow the Word of God, the Holy Bible, I was hoping against hope that we would have no major issues with them. After all, if we’d done our part, isn’t that what we deserved? Well, when things didn’t turn out as we’d anticipated, I struggled with the question, “Why?” and honestly, I wondered on more than one occasion about the fairness of it all.

One of the things I learned is that while we should be extraordinarily grateful to the Lord if we have no major trouble with our children, if things do not initially turn out as we anticipated, we must beware of the temptation to think that we have kept up our part of the bargain, but God has not kept up His end (the fairness issue). Such thoughts, I’ve found, will come, but if we allow them to fester, they can be lethal—leading us to become angry with the Lord or worse, to walk away from Him. And to do so is to forsake our own mercy, our own help. Nowhere in scripture has the Lord promised that our children will never stray from what they have been taught. Even Adam and Eve, who had the perfect parent (God) and lived in a perfect environment, made the dreadfully tragic decision to disobey God. The Bible is very clear:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation by His blood through faith.
Romans 3:23-25a

All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6

Notice the use of the word “all” in the passages above. People, even the children of committed Christian parents, have their own free will—this is something that God gives to each of us. And children, even the children of parents who genuinely love God, can be tempted to do wrong and can succumb to those temptations. In fact, they will succumb to some temptations for the Bible says that “all have sinned” and “all…have gone astray.” The Lord has not promised us otherwise. It is important to consider that even when we have been faithful to do all that we know to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, we will inevitably fall short as none of us is perfect. We are imperfect parents raising imperfect children in an imperfect world. But thank God, we serve an altogether perfect Savior Who knows our heart and hears our prayers and is more than able to make up the gap. When we asked the Lord Jesus to come into our heart and be our Savior and Lord, we became children of God who are in covenant with the all mighty Creator of heaven and earth. And the Lord has said that when our children go astray—whether by little or by much—He Himself will fight for us and for our children so that they are returned “to their own border” (Jeremiah 31:18). God’s ability to show us such awesome grace and mercy is not the result of our good works or of the wonderful way in which we have raised our children; it is not the result of what we deserve. It is rather the sole result of the great suffering and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, when we pray for our children, even in our deepest anguish, there should be a sense of genuine humility and immense gratitude for Who God is and what He has done for us through Jesus Christ. Our petitions on behalf of our children should be made based on the promises God has given us and on the price Jesus paid for those promises to be available to us. When praying to the Lord for our children, it is critically important that we plead the precious blood of Jesus, not our faithfulness in executing our excellent Christian parenting skills.

The Lord knows how we have lived before Him and He knows how we have raised our children. If we have done well, there will certainly be a reward for our obedience, but nowhere in scripture are we told that the reward is that our children will never go astray. The Lord will uphold His Word as we place our confident trust (faith) in Him. But we must believe God based on what He has said in His Word and not seek to hold Him to assumptions which are not based in scripture. As we consistently seek the Lord through prayer and Bible study, the Holy Spirit will minister to us—informing us, comforting us, reassuring us and directing us. Even if you were not a Christian when you raised your children, but have since asked the Lord Jesus to be your Savior, you too can pray for your children in the Name of Jesus based on the promises in God’s Word, and you too can plead the blood of Jesus on behalf of your children. The Word of God will not disappoint us. See the good news below:

Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered:
for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.
And all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.
Isaiah 49:24, 25 and 26b (KJV)