Before I had kids, I always thought, that disobedient children were a result of poor parenting. I know how harsh that sounds, but give me a little grace. The years since have changed me. It’s funny how the longer you live, the more you get to know incredible individuals, great mothers and fathers who have very difficult children, and, of course, chaotic adults who seem to have perfect children. This dichotomy forces a certain level of intellectual humility on all of us, and it certainly took me a while to accept it.
I can remember my first child. She was quick to do literally everything: walking, talking, reading, writing. She just seemed to get all of it so naturally. We were in our glory those early months, having our child be the first in everything, casually telling our friends about the milestones she had reached ahead of schedule. It was at that point that I had a friend who warned me, while my daughter was still very young, not to put my identity in the achievements of my child. He told me it was dangerous because if your enlightened parenting is solely responsible for the achievements of your child now, then what happens when your next kid comes along and can’t tie his shoes till he’s 12? Is that all your fault too?
This reorientation forced on me a level of humble detachment. Having to reckon with the fact that, as parents, all you can do is the best you can do, and you leave the rest to the Lord. Sure, it begins with shoe-tying, but it’s not long before the next challenge is an SAT score, a college admission, a grade, a post-graduate placement, a job, then relational partners, promotions, and who knows what else. The same logic that hands you credit for Ivy League admission hands you the bill for the addiction.
This past week I was catching up with a friend over breakfast. We unfortunately have a lot in common, both having experienced the divorce of our parents, the effect it had on our siblings, and even the loss of a close family member within the last several years. As we were talking about funerals and the perspective that that ritual brings, we landed on just how death brings clarity on which relationships are truly important in our lives.
Maybe out of emotion, or maybe it was fear, I said that my own father’s death had really just pushed me to buckle down and ensure I was investing the right amount of time on my own kids, my own family. At times, I felt tempted to shut out the outside world and just focus purely on ensuring that they grew up knowing and loving the Lord, because if that’s my legacy, that’s all that matters.
Many of you reading this are probably nodding. It’s a good impulse, after all. I’m sure many of you have even said the same thing, but he interjected with a piece of wisdom that I thought was prescient. It took me back to those early days of my baby Einstein, bragging on my daughter’s ability to read and tie her own shoes.
He told me, “Just be careful. Judas had the best teacher in the world. He listened to the best sermons on planet earth and had the best example of a life lived sinless, and yet even he couldn’t stay on the path.” Turns out Judas was a wayward son.
You all know me too well to believe that I am constructing some sort of ideology where we say it doesn’t really matter what you do. This kind of live-and-let-live philosophy of parenting, where since we can’t control the outcome, we don’t try. No, absolutely not. There’s plenty of room to encourage good parenting and to challenge our community, our friends, in these difficult times to do all they can to invest in their kids.
Instead, his comment cut me to the core for two different reasons. The first is that I need to reckon with extending more grace to the families I know whom I have silently judged for their children walking the wayward path. I need to extend that grace, in one sense, out of self-preservation. I may soon need it myself. The Bible warns us to be careful how we judge, because the same measure we extend will be applied back to us. The standard of perfection is pretty scary for me to consider, especially as I raise three boys who seem to forget their brains at home on a daily basis.
I guess it’s easy for those of us who seem to have great families right now to hold a high bar, but we all need to be reminded that any one of our kids is just a decision away from ruining our perfect little reputations. Further, we can probably all look back and think about the decisions we made where we avoided the consequences we were owed. How, but for the grace of God, or the intervention of a well-connected parent, or sheer luck, we didn’t pay the price we should have? How much better to approach these situations with grace.
The second thing that occurred to me on the drive home after breakfast with my friend was the fact that I needed to write this for the parent who has lived with guilt and shame because their child isn’t walking with the Lord. How that crown of shame has probably been worn for far too long. That sure, there were things you would have changed, done differently. But instead of a helpful reflection on past mistakes to spur future growth, you’ve allowed those moments of inattentiveness or seasons of absence to play on a memory loop, paralytically chaining you to the past at the expense of your future hope.
The Bible tells us what is required of us: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). I think it’s a helpful daily frame and is symbolized nowhere better than the Father in Luke 15. You know the story. The younger son asks for his inheritance early, which, if you know anything about that culture, was essentially wishing his father was dead, and yet the father gives it to him. The son leaves, blows it all, and ends up eating with the pigs. On the other hand, the older son stays home, keeps every rule, and works diligently.
Amazing, isn’t it? Do we credit the father for the actions of the older or the actions of the younger?
Have we ever wrestled with the fact that Jesus is making himself out to be the father? Why is he so comfortable with admitting he had a wayward son? Wasn’t he concerned about his reputation in town? Was he bitter when the son came back?
The father is the perfect model of this triad we got from Micah. He loved justice and taught it to his children. The father made sure his sons knew right and wrong. When the younger son comes to his senses in the pig pen, he knew what he had done. He knew whose house he had left. He admitted to his father that he had sinned against him. He had tasted the fruit of wrong choices and was repenting, but you can only repent from choices you know to be wrong.
He loved mercy. That word mercy is less to be read as kindness, like we often do, and much more to be emphasized as repentance, the turning around. The perfect picture is of an old man on a front porch scanning the horizon for weeks until he finally sees his son break over the hill, setting him off in motion while he was still a long way off.
This mercy is not a grit-your-teeth tolerance of a child who wandered. It is a burgeoning anticipation, a hope-filled horizon, and a heart that has pre-decided to rejoice at the turning.
And finally, maybe the most missed part of this story is when the older brother, the diligent one who had kept his responsibilities to his father, had not blown his inheritance. When he refuses to come into the party, which is more than just a judgment over his brother, it’s an insult of his father. What does this old man do?
“So his father went out and pleaded with him.”
His father also went out to him. Turns out he moved toward both of his sons: once in mercy to teach his younger wayward son about forgiveness, and once in humility to teach his older son a lesson about what it means to celebrate the repentance of others. No doubt rooted in an understanding that, but for the grace of God, this could be any of us. Today we celebrate your brother’s homecoming, but understand tomorrow we might celebrate yours.
This is what it means to walk in humility: to teach even those too proud to participate in the festivities that we are not above those same choices, had maybe our circumstances been a little different. We can’t use our position of perfection to push ourselves away from the party.
This man is the symbol of God in the parable, not because he raised perfect sons, but because he loved them perfectly, doing justice, loving mercy, and walking with humility, going to get each of his boys. Anxiously awaiting both of them to come home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Currently, I serve as the Executive Director of Them Before Us, advocating globally for the rights and well-being of children.
I am also the co-founder of All The Good, a leadership organization helping non-profits do all the good they are called to do.
I studied Cross-Cultural Ministry and Humanitarian and Disaster Leadership at Messiah and Wheaton. I read a lot and sleep less than I probably should.
Great points for new and old parents. Well written.
I had tried to keep in mind that my children will be trying to survive on their own in their future.
We, parents are just their "trainers" for 18 years, in their possible 80+++ years of lives.