There’s nothing that keeps a parent awake at night like the fear of their child’s eternal destiny. So often, and so easily, we will see our unsaved child and find all the ways we’ve failed them. If we’d just done this or hadn’t said that, they might be serving God today. The goal of this article is to help all of us find comfort in God, renew our trust in His sovereignty, and remind us all of our role as parents.
God hears our cries
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. (1 John 5:14-15)
If we’re honest, our child’s lack of faith in Christ can also challenge our own. We can spend years in daily prayer, agonizing over our child, with no results to our prayer. In darker moments, we may even wonder if ignores us, or perhaps just doesn’t care.
Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken. (Psalm 55:22)
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)
Although God’s silence can seem like carelessness, He assures us that He listens. He sees our burdened hearts, hears our silent cries to Him, and comforts us with the peace and guidance of the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t sit there expressionless, but instead sustains us and emboldens our faith through those hard times.
He knows what He’s doing
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
If we had it our way, God would tell us what He’s doing right now. If they’re going to be saved, why not do it now? If they aren’t, why let us spend their entire lives anguishing over them?
W have the benefit of looking through the Bible and see all the ways God moved. We see how almost every story begins with suffering and ends with God getting incredible glory. We see Daniel’s suffering used to save thousands of people and turn as many to God. We see David’s adultery eventually brought about the good king Solomon, though not before David and Bathsheba had to go through great loss first. And most importantly, humanity itself spent thousands of years under the effects of sin as it waited for God to reveal Jesus Christ, our savior and redeemer.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)
Of course, not all suffering ends with the good we hope for. We want the fear for our child to end in their redemption so that we can praise God for His goodness. We want to tell everyone the story of our own prodigal son. We want our suffering to be worth it.
And in the end, our suffering will be worth it. Whatever God’s plan for our child, we know that it will result in Him getting the ultimate glory. We are too finite, too limited in our minds, to grasp how that could possibly be. How will we be able to praise God if our child can’t spend eternity doing it with us?
This is where faith in God is so important. Not just a blind faith because we hope for the best, but a faith born from a deep understanding of His goodness, His mercy, and His justice. When we seek God, He gives us a fuller picture of how big He is, and how vastly different He is from us.
His aim is to rescue His people from the punishment of sin, strengthen their faith, and ultimately receive the glory He deserves. And in the midst of all His workings throughout the universe, for thousands of years, He gave us a child that will give Him glory. We don’t know how He will do it, we often can’t even fathom how not saving our child will work out for good, but He has proven Himself time after time that He is good, and He can be trusted. All we can do is be faithful to the responsibility He’s given us, walking by faith when we can’t see the end purpose of it all.
Their salvation isn’t our failure (or success)
Parents are excellent at finding all the ways they went wrong in raising their children. That guilt weighs heavily on us every time we are reminded that our child is living against God, and it’s weight never seems to get lighter as the years go. Many of us may even go to our grave with our last thought being about what we could have done better.
As a parents, we must remember one simple truth: our purpose isn’t to convince our child to be saved.
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me. (John 16:7-9)
It’s not our job to convict our child of sin, and there is immense comfort in that. Their salvation isn’t dependent on us being clever, knowing the right verse at the right time, or ruining it all by showing them our sinfulness one too many times. God is good, and one of the ways He proves that is by giving us a job we can actually handle.
If salvation is a fire in our child’s heart, then all God needs us to do is pile up kindling. It’s not our job to convince and guilt and nag them until they finally relent and acknowledge their sinfulness. Instead, we use wisdom to provide fuel, standing aside and letting the Holy Spirit spark that flame. We give them godly council, talk about our sin, demonstrate repentance, and live a Spirit-filled life where they don’t see our goodness, but the presence of the gospel in our lives.
When we accept this, our role in proclaiming the gospel and making disciples becomes an exciting experience. We don’t need to agonize over how much we know, how clever we are, or if we’re doing enough for someone to get saved. Instead, all we need to do is live as God calls us to, pursuing holiness and telling others about sin, God’s righteous requirements, and the freedom from judgment offered through Jesus Christ.
Our child’s salvation is out of our hands, and praise God for that. It’s up to Him to convict them of sin and their need for a savior. It is God who humbles them into seeing their inability to please Him. It is the Holy Spirit who brings them to godly sorrow over sin. It is us, as parents, to simply be God’s instrument by our willingness to teach them, then through our continued trust that He will use our faithfulness for His glory.
I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:9-10)
