If a Child Wanders From the Faith, Is It the Parents’ Fault?

Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

J.D. Greear

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Show Notes:

* We should be as intentional with our families as we are with our jobs.
* There is a sense that, on one level, I as a parent affect the faith journey of my kids.
* But on another level, there is a limit to the responsibility parents have for the choices our kids make. God has made them as individuals. A lot of godly parents will have a child who wanders. And it's not because they did something wrong.
* Think about it: God was a perfect Father. And the only two humans he "fathered" directly (Adam and Eve) both rebelled. It wasn't because of deficiencies in God's parenting.
* There are decisions only our kids can make. Even under the best of circumstances, they can decide to pursue things that are contrary to what God would have for them.
* Pray for your kids. Speak truth to them. But ultimately, know that God wants us to lean into his grace.

God cares more for our kids than we do and he can pursue our kids in ways that we can't.

Lean not on your ability as a parent; lean on God's grace as the hope for your child.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Welcome to Ask Me Anything. I'm Matt Love. I'm here with Pastor,
0:20.7	author, theologian. J.D. Greer Matt Love. I'm here with Pastor, author, Theologian.
0:22.0	J.D. Greer.
0:23.1	J.D., one of the key themes at our church recently, we've been talking a lot about prayer
0:26.5	and the importance of bringing the desires of your heart to God and really trusting him with those.
0:32.0	And like you talk about in your book, Just Ask, we've heard that parents who have children that wander away from the faith.
0:37.0	They're always asking that question. Like, they're praying for their kids and they're just
0:39.5	wondering, is this my fault? Is it my fault that they wandered away? Am I not praying hard enough?
0:44.0	And I'd just love to hear what you think about that. Yeah, Matt, that's a tough one. I will say
0:49.2	that one of the most heart-wrenching things for a parent, who is a follower of Jesus, a committed follower of Jesus,
0:57.9	is for them to experience one of their kids walking away from the faith.
1:02.9	And I know, I know that it feels like, like you've done something wrong.
1:04.5	Like what did I do?
1:06.1	What conversation did I miss?
1:08.1	How did I lead them astray?
1:13.4	Was I not as attentive as I was supposed to be? You know, the pastor and me wants to answer this on two levels. I mean, the first level is, let me just kind of state
1:18.2	the obvious, yes, there are things that we can do as parents that can help move our kids closer
1:23.6	to Jesus or drive them away from Jesus. And those are serious and weighty things.
1:29.5	And we should take them seriously and devote ourselves to them. You know, I've been a student of a lot
1:34.7	of books. I read at least probably three books on parenting a year, I think. You know, books like
1:40.7	old school, like growing kids God's way, Bringing Up Boys by James Dobson, raising
1:45.3	a modern day night, more recent books like gospel-based parenting or give them grace.
	...

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