What Would You Say to the Parent of a Wayward Teen?

Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

J.D. Greear

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. answers another question about how to parent teenagers. This time he's joined by his wife, Veronica.

Show Notes:

A wandering child does not mean failure: God played the parent role for two humans and they both rebelled. Cain and Abel were parented exactly the same. One became a man of God, the other a murderer.

Key resource: Feeding the Mouth that Bites You, by Ken Wilgus, Ph.D. and the Feeding the Mouth that Bites You podcast.

When a kid is in rebellion, you can’t be prophet and dad at the same time.

Think more like a farmer than a mechanic. Worst thing to do is dig up seed! You give rain and sun. In the analogy, rain and sun are the quality of the relationship not quantity of devotion.

Wait on God: All the defining moments in my life came from somewhere else.

Psalm 136: Israel’s history with “steadfast love of Lord endures forever.” I did this an exercise with our staff team. We wrote out key moments where the Lord worked in our lives, and I had this realization: my mom and dad wrote none of the key moments in my life.
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Psalm 127
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Psalm 37:39-40

The role of prayer:

Abraham prays for Lot and angels grab his hand.
Man lowered through roof: their faith. your faith subs for the man in the stretcher.

Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question.

As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast!

Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone, welcome to Ask Me Anything.
0:05.0	I am your host, Matt Love. And we have a question today that I'm really excited to hear Jady's answer to. But I also recognize that this is a really, this is a really sensitive question for some people. As you guys know,
0:38.1	we're in a marriage and family series, and so we're trying to tackle some questions with
0:42.6	Pastor J.D. that people are processing as spouses and parents. And so today, J.D., the question is,
0:50.8	what would you say to parents of wayward teens? So this is a little bit of a part two to what we
0:57.2	did last time I asked me anything. And this time I actually have the privilege of having Veronica
1:00.5	join me because I got the end of that one last time and I thought, you know, I really need her here.
1:04.8	So this particular focus of this question is when you have a wayward teen. First thing I just
1:10.1	want to say is a wandering
1:12.4	child does not mean failure. It's hard not to think that when you're in that situation because
1:18.1	you feel like, you know, did I do something or not do something? One of the things I think
1:23.7	that is really important to hold on to, Veronica and I have held on to is that God was a
1:28.3	perfect parent and the only two people he directly parented directly rebelled. Kane and Abel,
1:34.5	they were parented exactly the same and one grew up to be a man of faith and one grew up to be a
1:39.4	murderer. We, you know, we recognize that there is a, a dignity that God gives to every child that
1:48.5	becomes an adult that really, as a parent, you are not responsible for them. You're responsible
1:54.3	to them. That they could be raised perfectly, just like God was a perfect parent and they still walk
1:59.5	away. So as much as you can, you have to say, yes, there are things you look back on and say,
2:03.1	I wish we had done that differently.
2:04.5	But ultimately, their choices are not a result of your parenting either good or bad.
2:09.6	That's one of the things we've been learning, Veronica, you and I in this book I referred to it last time called
2:13.7	feeding the mouth that bites you, talking about raising teens.
	...

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