As parents, we invest our heart and soul into raising our children. We spend countless hours of time nurturing, instructing, training, correcting, praying for and loving our children. When the day comes that your child is getting along in years, maybe to the teen age, they may get the idea that they know more than you. The Bible calls this being “wise in their own eyes.” It’s that natural desire for independence and the desire for the freedom to make choices and decisions on their own. But, with the freedom to make our own choices and decisions, inevitably comes the freedom to choose wrong. Maybe in your family, your teen told you a lie. Maybe they have become involved with the wrong crowd, somehow got addicted to drugs or maybe they have turned their back on God and rejected Jesus Christ.
When these things happen it can be devastating. It can leave a parent with a feeling of helplessness. It can leave you feeling like there is no hope for things to ever be the same between you and your child. But these are the times when we can turn to God and reflect on His Word and His love for us, His children. You see, God Himself has rebellious children and He understands what you are going through and He gives us example after example of how to get through this with faith.
The Bible tells us we were created in the image of God. So we should handle this situation the way He does. Look at the nature of our loving God when His children rebel.
Romans 5:8-10
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
This says that God demonstrates His own love towards us and He did it even while we were still sinners. He just keeps on loving us, even when we misbehave. What can we learn from this and apply to our situation? Well, even when our teenager is making bad choices, even when they are angry at us for disciplining them, even when they withhold their love from us, we demonstrate our love for them. Love never fails!
1 John 4:7-11 says
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Verse 8 is the one that really made me stop and think. It basically says that if we don’t love then we don’t know God! So that means I have to overcome those urges and desires to strike back and rather choose to show them love. We heard a preacher say one time, “There is no defense from love.” It’s true. We can love them and they can’t stop us! And we can pray and ask God to heal our relationships, to open our eyes and our children’s eyes to the truth and to show us how to make it out of this.
The Bible tells us that through faith and patience we inherit the promise. So don’t feel helpless and don’t be hopeless. As followers of Jesus Christ, we always have hope.
Jeremiah 31:16-17
16 Thus says the LORD: “Refrain your voice from weeping, And your eyes from tears; For your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD, And they shall come back from the land of the enemy. 17 There is hope in your future, says the LORD, that your children shall come back to their own border.
Since creation, time and time again, God’s children disobeyed, rebelled and turned their backs on Him. And time and time again, He has showed is faithful, unconditional love towards them. We can do the same with our children and diffuse those situations, time and time again.
