Do You Have a Wayward Child?

One of the greatest heartaches of a Christian parent is having a child who is not walking with the Lord.  

Despite being reared to know and love God, sometimes our children choose another path.  Because we know how dangerous it is to know the truth and walk away, we fear for our children. 

We know that the pull of evil is so strong, and the flesh is so weak that our children can easily get sucked into a lifestyle that brings heartache and destruction. The enemy of their souls is extremely crafty, and he can easily deceive them into thinking that bad is good and good is bad.

What can we as Christian parents do?

Stormie Omartian, in her book The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children (2009, Harvest House Publishers), has this to say, "If you have adult children who have been captured by evil influences and destructive behavior, and they keep relapsing back into it once they are free, refuse to give up and stop praying."

Scripture says the same in Romans 8:25, "If we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance (emphasis mine).  This reminds us that we do not have to sit idly by while we hope for a breakthrough, but that we can be actively involved in helping to bring about that breakthrough in our children's lives.

One of our greatest weapons against the wiles of the devil when he sinks his hooks into our children is to wage spiritual warfare against him through prayer and fasting.  "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood," Paul says in Ephesians 6:12 ,"but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness." We do not have to sit idly by and hope our children have a change of heart, we can persevere in faith through prayer.

Prayer is a powerful weapon. Second Corinthians 10:4 describes this spiritual warfare as "mighty in God for pulling down strongholds."

Stormie encourages us, "Sometimes it may seem that the more you pray, the worse it gets.  But you can't back down. If the enemy has turned up the intensity, you need to turn up the fervency.  Often the battle becomes more intense the closer you get to victory" (140).

Take heart, praying parent.  We do not have to do this alone. Romans 8:26 reminds us that "the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.  For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."  This is encouraging!  When we reach a point where our heart is breaking, and we think we cannot cry another tear or utter another prayer on our child's behalf, the Holy Spirit of God comes alongside us and prays with us.

God knows that we are frail, that we lose hope, and that we despair. Knowing this, He has made provision for us.  He has sent the Comforter to come beside us, to lift our burden and to make it His own. He not only helps us bear the burden of our wayward children, He prays for them according to the will of God. (Romans 8:27)

"What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:31).

As you pray for your wayward child, "do not fear, only believe." (Mark 5:36)

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living."(Psalm 27:13)

 I encourage you to trust God today as you fervently seek God's will in the life of your child.  Press on.  The victory is near!

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Baby Turtles and Baby Girls -- Thoughts on Sending a Child Off to College

We all held our breath as the naturalist gently probed the sandy cavity.  He counted out loud as he pulled out eggshell after empty eggshell.  We counted with him.  "67, 68, 69."  Oh, how I wished I had been a witness to the flood of baby turtles that had boiled out of this nest two days earlier!  It must have been an amazing sight.

The South Carolina coast is a favorite nesting spot for Loggerhead turtles, and Myrtle Beach State Park had incubated more than its usual number of nests.  Tonight, the naturalist at the park was inventorying one of the nests for statistical purposes.  Several days after a hatching, turtle watchers are required to open up the nest and count the number of hatched eggs, unhatched eggs, and remaining baby turtles.  We watched in fascination as he sifted through the sand and pulled out eggshell after leathery eggshell.

"Seventy, 71, 72 . . . oh!  looks like we've got a live one in here!" he exclaimed as his searching fingers encountered a shell of a different sort -- one with flippers and a tail.  He pulled out a tiny baby turtle, no bigger than a silver dollar, and held him up for us to see.

"Oh, he's so cute!" said one little girl, voicing what all of us were thinking as we examined the miniature reptile.  The naturalist placed him gently on the sand and continued searching.  By the end of the inventory, he had placed one more live baby on the sand beside him.

"Shouldn't we put them in the ocean?" one man asked.  The naturalist explained that these babies hadn't been strong enough to crawl out of the nest on their own, so it was very important that they make their own way down the beach. "Walking the long distance to the ocean strengthens their flippers.  If we just drop them in the water, they'll swim around in circles until a seagull eats them," he prophesied grimly.

"Walking on the beach also imprints the beach in their minds, " he said, "and in 30 years, when it's time for them to lay their eggs, they will return to this exact beach.  Even though they migrate hundreds of miles away, they will always remember where home is."

We formed a line on either side of the babies, all the way to the ocean. He instructed one man to stand in the water with a flashlight shining toward the nest, and the little turtles began their long walk.  Sometimes they strayed from the straight and narrow course, and we had to adjust the line of people cheering them on.  Always we stayed on either side of them, not touching them, but rooting for them as they struggled.

The man with the flashlight, the naturalist explained, was a beacon, helping the turtles find their way to the ocean.  Hatchlings instinctively know to head toward the horizon, he said, which is always the lightest point in the sky. 

It took over an hour for those babies to travel the 90 feet to the ocean.  We cheered them every step of the way.  When the first crawled close enough to the water for a wave to carry him away, the group erupted in a shout.  His brother soon followed, and then they were gone.

I remembered that special night this week. As I send my baby girl off to college for the first time, I feel a little like I did the evening we released the baby turtles to the ocean. We've had the joy of enjoying our daughter from the time she was a tiny baby, standing beside her as she grew stronger and watching her learn to walk.  We have surrounded her with friends and family to cheer her on and give her direction.  

Best of all, we have always pointed her to the Beacon of her soul, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will always shine a light on her path to show her the way.  I have faith that as she has imprinted our home on her heart, no matter how far away she travels, she will always remember where home is.

I love you, baby girl.  Swim straight and true and make us proud.  We're cheering for you!

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