Here is What You Can Do.
As Christian parents instilling faith in our children is one of the most important things we can do. After all, our children are the future of the world and of the church. But we know that there is going to be a time when our children are going to have to choose for themselves to follow Christ. Studies show that more and more young Christians are leaving the faith each year. So what do you do if your child has left the faith?
Love Them Unconditionally
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8: 38,39
Just as the Father shows us unconditional love each and every day, we need to do the same with our children. They need to know that no matter the decisions they make that they will always be loved.
This doesn’t mean that we are going to agree and participate in sinful behavior. It is important that our children know that they will not get that from us.
Pray and Fast for Them
The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16b
Prayer and fasting are powerful weapons that God has given us. Our children need our daily prayers, especially if they have left the faith. Because they, more then likely, are not praying for themselves. When we do this we are humbling ourselves before God and showing Him that we trust Him.
We also need to pray and fast for ourselves so that God can give us the strength, wisdom and grace to face this situation.
Here is a post I wrote about powerful prayers to pray over you children that I believe can be helpful.
Build Trust and Communication
There is a reason or reasons why your child might have left the faith. Maybe someone from the church hurt them. Maybe they saw the hypocrisy of some church members. Or maybe they felt that being a Christians came with too many restrictions and they want to enjoy what the world has to offer.
Whatever their reasons may be it is important that our children know that they can trust us and talk to us about why they decided to make that decision. We need to be open to communication. If communication doesn’t come easy we need to ask God for help.
Don’t Judge Them
Whatever the reasons may be that our children decided to leave the church it is important that they do not feel judged.
We can decern the situation and feel a certain way about it, but being critical can close the doors to trust and communication that we talked about earlier.
Avoid Point Fingers
Don’t blame yourself. Don’t blame your child. Don’t blame anybody.
It’s easy to point fingers but at the end of the day it wont solve anything. It will make us even more bitter and just be in the way of what we can accomplish through prayer and trusting in God.
Put Them in God’s Hands
This, at the end of the day, is the best thing one can do. We have to completely surrender our children to God. He has complete control of the situation. His love for our children is greater than our own love form them and in His time they will come back to him.
Just like the prodigal son came back to his father, after having spent all of his inheritance living sinfully and eventually going hungry, he came back to his father and his father welcomed him with open arms and threw a huge celebration (Matthew 15: 11-32). As will be the same when our children come back.
There will be a celebration in our hearts and in heaven!
