Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Well, here at Focus on the Family, our counseling team gets about 2,000 calls a month. And one of the top reasons that people call us for counseling is because they have a child who has walked away from God or has drifted away from the faith.
How can you stay hopeful in that kind of a circumstance? I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Danny Huerta, who leads our parenting team, and we have some hope for you. We're going to hear now from Jodi Berndt. She was on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and Jodi explained how you can trust God during those times when your kids, especially your teen, rebels. In your book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens, you address teen rebellion and prodigals, and we do want to spend a little time there. We are talking about that.
Those are tough issues for Christian parents particularly, because again, to a degree it reflects upon us. Our children are part of us. So when our kids are not behaving the way good Christian kids should behave, we take it personally. We absolutely do. We think it's our fault. I remember with one of our kids at one point getting so discouraged that I felt like I couldn't even pray anymore. You know, get to that point where you're just at the end where you think,
I've said all the prayers I can pray. Where do we even go from here?" And I think if you're in that spot with your child, no matter how old they are, remember a couple of things. Remember, again, that God gets it. He's a parent. He knows exactly. Isaiah 1, I think it's verse 2, where we see God's children walking away from Him.
Right. He's the perfect parent. And all of, like Hosea 11, my favorite chapter of God as a parent, because it's like he's saying, I taught you to walk. I bent down to feed you, and you grew up and you walked away from me. And I'm angry, God says. And so I think we can look at these things and realize God gets it. He understands. But he never stops loving us, and he never stops pursuing us. He never stops wooing us home.
So for the parent who feels like their kid is walking away, I would say the old listen, be available. They might not want to talk to you, but keep the dialogue open as much as it depends on you. Love them. Be there for them. Don't close the door. And then pray. Listen, love, and pray. Just keep bringing them to God.
Yeah, one of my favorite prayers along those lines is actually just the parable of what I call the forgiving father. Oh, yes. Not the prodigal son, but the forgiving father who's got his eye out for that child. His eye and runs. And you know he's looking. He's constantly waiting for that child to come home. Mm-hmm.
We need to model that with some of our kids. And you know that father had a wife probably too who was doing the same thing. They don't talk about the mother of the prodigal son, but I know she's back there on her knees. I think the difficulty in that environment is how to maintain a relationship because you're so brokenhearted. They may have done some very egregious things and it's tough. And I'm thinking of a story, Rob Parsons, our sister organization, Care for the Family in the UK. Okay.
It has a wonderful story about a mother and father who had a 15-year-old daughter who ran away from home. And she ran away from home and never came back, at least in the short run. But every Christmas, they would decorate a tree and have it in the – and leave the porch light on every night. They left the porch light on for her. And this was the mother's idea of just sending the signal that we're thinking about you.
And it wasn't until she was like 22, so seven years later, that she came back and she would tell her mom and dad
That at Christmas particularly, she'd come and sit in her car. It gives me tears thinking about it. And see the porch light on. And see the light. Oh, wow. Wow. But she didn't have the courage or the ability to knock on the door. See, and that's like God's working when we don't always see it happening. But she came back. She came back. She came back. And that's the hope. That's the hope. That's the hope. And that's the promise. God never stops wooing our children. But in that regard, how do you keep the light on? Again, by trusting him.
By praying, by knowing that he loves your child even more than you do. I think a lot of parents can make a mistake by thinking they've got to keep drilling it in. And all of our kids would look at it and go, I know what you think, Mom. I know you think me living with this guy is wrong. I know you think my job isn't what you would have chosen. I know that whatever it is.
They know what we think. So we don't need to be, as they get older, always telling them. We need to be loving them. We need to be, again, talking to God about them. We need to be speaking to the good things, and we need to be keeping that porch light on. Yeah, and listen. So hard, because we want to correct it, correct the behavior that we don't appreciate. Yeah, and also just for the parent who feels like the cake is baked and it's not come out good, or that they have said or done something wrong,
to ruin their child, to ruin that relationship. I would just say, and it's been said by people much smarter than I am, our power to ruin our kids is nothing compared to God's desire to redeem, to redeem them, to redeem us, to rebuild that relationship. And so I think we need to hold on to that hope, knowing that He's the God who can restore the years the locusts have eaten, Joel too, and that He always wants to redeem and repair and rebuild. His heart is for families. Mm-hmm.
Boy, that's a beautiful place to be. I think the only other question then is the practicality of putting this into action, praying for your teens with all of the stuff that we've talked about. And your teen is, you know, wherever they're at, the listener, the viewer. We don't know every story. We know the cluster of stories that they're doing things that you're not really supporting and they're not really clinging to the Lord, perhaps.
What advice do you have to put this into play and then trust it? Well, my advice won't surprise you, and that is to be faithful in prayer.
And things, whether you get the book or download the prayer calendar, just to get a couple of verses. And you don't have to pray the whole Bible. You can pick three that you like. Ephesians 4, 32, praying that your child will be kind and compassionate to others, forgiving them just as they've been forgiven. You know, praying that they would trust in the Lord. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, Lord, help my child trust you.
acknowledge you, direct their paths, those things. Just find a couple of them that you can be praying on behalf of your child, bringing them before the Lord. Because God says...
In Isaiah, his word is not going to return empty. It always accomplishes the purposes for which it is sent. And I don't think we avail ourselves of the Bible as a tool nearly as much. We think it's something we read. It's actually something we pray. And when we pray, we tap into that power that releases God's provision. That's the practical. Darrell Bock I so love that. And Jodi, this is so good. I mean, this is really practical stuff, not just for teens, but probably your 20-somethings too. Jodi Kruse
that you can apply to them. I will do it. And I think it's just a great thing, a great attitude to have before the Lord, the trust that you're conveying to Him. Yeah, it's not always easy, but He is faithful. And He's ultimately the one in charge of that relationship, not us. And we've got to learn to let go, but to stay on our knees. It's beautiful. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Always a joy.
Well, Danny, I've talked to a lot of parents who have been kind of where Jim and Jody were talking. Their kids have walked away, or at least for now they've walked away, and there's a lot of guilt and self-blaming going on. How do we handle those, I guess, accusations that go on in our head and heart that we've messed up? Self-accusations, that's a very real thing, John. And it's a natural response. It makes sense that as parents, if we see our kids struggling in their faith—
It naturally points to, man, did I do something wrong? That question will come up. So don't feel bad about that. Really what we need to begin to look at though as parents is our kids get to own their successes and their failures and all their decisions. And that's ultimately what we're raising them to do.
And so if they're successful, it's a lot of God working through them and doing things in them. And in their growth, they found that it's not because of us. We've been a part of their rolling credits. And if you look at a movie, there are nine minutes, seven to nine minutes of rolling credits. Same thing in a child's life. There's so many things that contribute to
to a child that's very focused on their faith or very distracted from their faith. And it's not only you as a parent that can own that. Now, are you imperfect? And I can hear a parent saying, yeah, but I did this and I did that and we fought or maybe there was a divorce or just a variety of things. Yes, those can be contributing factors. However,
For a child, they still need to make their own decisions, their own choices, own those. And you give it the very best you can, and your kids get to take it from there. And in the process, as Jody was pointing out, we need to be praying for our kids faithfully all the time. I love Psalm 55, 1. It says, "'Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy.'"
And so as we're pleading for mercy for our kids and just asking God to listen to us, the big question is, do I believe he's actually listening?
to my heart, because what we're wanting are very, very good things for our kids. And so take courage, parents, as you're thinking about your child and whether they're far from the faith or just stepping away from that. Don't own that. What you can do is pray for wisdom, pray for them, and know that they are on a journey at this point, and God has not left them
And he's still knocking at their door. Ask for those moments to open up their eyes. I love that. And I so appreciate Jodi and her reliance on the scripture. There are times when I'm praying for my family and I just don't know. And I come across a verse and it's sort of like, that's what I want to pray right there, that piece of scripture. So get a copy of Jodi's excellent book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens, which is going to equip you
to avoid discouragement and instead lean into and trust in God's provision, His plan for your child. We're making that book available for a gift of any amount to the ministry today. So please donate generously as you can and request that book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens. You can make that donation and find details about the book in the show notes.
And if you need some help, if you've worked through some of that kind of self-accusing dialogue that goes on in your head and you're still stuck, we have caring Christian counselors here. And our donor community makes it possible for them to give you a call and talk things through, offer some insight, pray with you. And if you'd like, they can connect you with a trusted counselor in your area for ongoing discussions.
So if you want some help, we're a phone call away. 800-the letter A in the word family. And we'll have a link in the notes as well. Now next time, we're going to hear from Arlene Pelican about kids and tech. For now, on behalf of Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.
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