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About 9 minutes to read
Your child or grandchild may mock the faith, or deny God under your roof, or be lost to drink or drugs. Jesus told of a son who wasted his substance with riotous living (Luke 15:13).
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
Luke 15:20 (KJV)
The father in this story pictures God, and his welcome to a sinner who comes home is real. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, and there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth (Luke 19:10, 15:7). He knows what it is to be refused by his own (John 1:11). You may grieve this loss, though no one sends flowers for it.
God promised this to his scattered people.
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26 (KJV)
This is what God does for his people, and only he can do it. It is not a promise about one person, but it is a reason to pray. The stony heart pictures a will dead toward God, as every heart is by nature, and what it pictures is real.
When God calls those he has chosen, he renews their wills and by his almighty power draws them to Christ. Yet they come most freely, being made willing by his grace (Westminster Confession 10.1). He has not told us who they are, so no one may write your child off. If your child once professed faith, you need not settle tonight whether it was real. The Lord knoweth them that are his (2 Timothy 2:19).
Repentance is God’s gift, and he may yet give it. Ask him. Do not quarrel with your child, but be gentle and patient (2 Timothy 2:24-25). Keep the door open, and love your child without approving their sin. An open door never means letting danger in.
If your child was baptized, the working of baptism is not tied to the moment it was done. The Holy Ghost gives its grace to those it belongs to, as God wills, in his appointed time (Westminster Confession 28.6). Baptism is a sign and seal to pray on, not a guarantee.
Some read Proverbs 22:6, Train up a child in the way he should go, as a promise that your child must come back, or as proof that you failed. It is neither, and God has not broken his word. A proverb tells how things usually go, not what must happen every time. God said of Israel, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me (Isaiah 1:2). Their rebellion was not his failure.
Where you sinned against your child, by harsh words or neglect, confess it to God, and to your child if you can. But do not take their sin on yourself. God says a parent does not bear the iniquity of a child (Ezekiel 18:20).
Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. He died, and on the third day he rose again (1 Peter 3:18, 1 Corinthians 15:4). If you are his, your sins were laid on him and are forgiven. He is able to bring your child to God too.
Before you sleep, do these three things.
- Pray for your child by name. Cry out in the night, and pour out your heart like water before the Lord for them (Lamentations 2:19).
- Tell your pastor or an elder. Ask them to pray, and to help you see what love requires for a minor at home or a grown child. If you have no church, call a Christian friend, and read Do Not Carry It Alone below.
- Lie down, and leave the watch to God. Eat something. If you have other children, they still need you at the table. If anyone threatens or hurts you, get safe first. If the grief or the guilt brings thoughts of ending your life, call 988 or text 988 tonight, and tell someone near you.
When you are ready to search your heart
Your grief for your child is love, not sin, and this is not a hunt for a cause. Your child’s sin is their own. But a long sorrow has its own temptations, and it is a mercy to see them.
One is despair, as if your child were beyond God’s reach. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord (Lamentations 3:26). Another is a hard heart toward your child, the cold word, or the door shut in anger and not for safety. In Jesus’ story the elder brother was angry, and would not go in when his brother came home (Luke 15:28). Pray that if your child comes home, you will run like the father. Another is the opposite, handing over money that feeds their sin, or making excuses for it, and calling it love. Another is turning on your husband or wife, as if blame could bring your child home. And longing for your child’s return is right, but it can become the thing you live for, more than Christ himself.
If you find any of these in you, bring it to Christ, who died for sins like these and rose again. He turns away no one who comes, and he is faithful and just to forgive (1 John 1:9). Then keep praying for your child by name.
If you do not know Christ, or are not sure you do, his own question is below.
The church
Do Not Carry It Alone
This page can hand you Scripture. It cannot sit with you, pray over you, or bring you a meal. Christ gave those things to his church.
Call your pastor or an elder today. If one of them is the one hurting you, call another pastor you trust. You do not have to explain it well. Say that something has happened and ask him to pray with you. If the need is money or meals or rides, tell your deacons. That is what the office is for. Peter told the elders, Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof (1 Peter 5:2). Letting them do it is not a burden you lay on them. It is the work Christ gave them. When an elder comes, ask when he will come again.
Go to worship on the Lord’s Day, even if you only sit and weep. Sit under the Word, and pray with God’s people. If you are a communing member, come to the Lord’s Table. It was given for the relief of weak and doubting Christians too (Larger Catechism Q&A 172). The Word, the sacraments, and prayer are the means by which Christ gives his people the benefits of his redemption (Shorter Catechism Q&A 88), and by them weak faith is strengthened (Westminster Confession 14.1). Yours may be weak this week. Where you can, put off large decisions for a while, and do not make any of them alone. Getting safe is never a decision to put off.
If you have no church, find a faithful one near you and go this Sunday. Look for one where Christ is preached from the whole Bible, where baptism and the Lord’s Supper are given as he commanded, and where elders watch over the flock. Then ask how to join it. Christ never meant for one of his sheep to walk alone. If you do not know where to start, write to me. I keep this site. I am not a pastor, and I cannot always answer quickly. In an emergency, do not wait on me. Call 911, or call 988 or text 988. But I will pray for you, and I will help you look for a church.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (KJV)
One day you may sit with someone else in this same dark. The comfort God gives you now is meant to be passed on.
If you do not know him
Believest Thou This
Maybe you came here because of a death, a diagnosis, a broken home, or a lost job, and you are not a Christian. The promises here belong to those who belong to Christ. They can be yours.
Jesus spoke these words to a grieving woman on the road outside her village, four days after her brother was buried (John 11:17, 20). Then he asked her a question. He asks you the same one.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
John 11:25-26 (KJV)
If you came here grieving someone, this is not a word about them. Leave them with God. It is a word about you. Death came into the world through sin, and one day you will stand before God yourself (Romans 5:12, Hebrews 9:27).
But Christ died in the place of sinners and bore the punishment their sins deserved, and on the third day he rose again. Everyone who turns from sin and trusts him alone is forgiven and counted righteous for his sake (Shorter Catechism Q&A 33, 87). He said that whoever comes to him he will in no wise cast out (John 6:37). Call on him tonight, in your own words. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13). Do not wait until the grief lifts. Come as you are, with the grief.
The gospel page sets it out in full. Read it slowly.