The most important lesson that we can teach our prodigals is that we are all sinners, saved by grace. This is more important than raising up children with good character and a strict moral code.
Proverbs 22:6; Luke 15
“Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 ESV
The promise of this proverb is a great encouragement to new parents who are frantically reading every book on child rearing while anxiously navigating the responsibilities of discipling another human being from birth. It offers a level of assurance with a glimmer of hope that if they can do everything right, their children will grow up into a fruitful life of devotion to Christ.
But for the parents who have been through the process and watched as one or more of their children have walked away from the faith, this verse carries a weight of guilt and shame around their necks. These parents question their parenting skills, over-analyze their disciplinary efforts, and blame themselves or their spouse for the outcome of their children.
Parents today are constantly competing with hundreds of influences over their children: schools, friends, entertainment, social media, etc. With so many things stacked against the parents’ succeeding, one has to question if this proverb still applies. Will the faithfulness of Christian parents really be enough to keep their children on the straight and narrow?
The Prodigals In Your Life
The story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 tugs at our heartstrings especially in our postmodern era where everyone can relate to having a prodigal in their lives. However, the original meaning of the parable is not a prescription about how to rescue a prodigal but to demonstrate the overwhelming love and grace of God to save all who are sinners and need forgiveness. That’s us. We are all prodigals. We all, like sheep, have gone astray.
The most important lesson that we can teach our prodigals is that we are all sinners, saved by grace. This is more important than raising up children with good character and a strict moral code. This is demonstrating that our righteousness is not our own but has been imputed to us through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
This is a difficult lesson to teach. We want children to see that their bad behaviors are wrong and that obedience is good, but also that we are not saved by our good works. We are saved by grace through faith.
We need to train up children with a gospel perspective. This means that we do not punish them for their mistakes while ignoring our own bad behaviors. Repentance needs to be demonstrated from the leaders of a home and grace needs to be highlighted as the source of our character.
It is never too late to start. Even if a prodigal has already left the home, living today in the spirit of the gospel allows us to shine forth the good work of Christ in our lives. By proclaiming the gospel through our actions, prodigals will see that we are more than words and that we mean what we say.
Jesus Cares For Your Prodigal
Whenever a parent tells me about their prodigal with tears in their eyes, I always want to reassure them that God loves their children. In fact, He loves them more than the parents do. Even more, God loves them better than any parent could.
A parent’s best efforts to love their children will always hurt them. They will either discipline them too much or not enough, either spoiling them or provoking them to rebel. Finding the balance between the two is incredibly difficult. We are broken people trying to help broken people, but God’s love is perfect. He knows just how much gentleness and firmness a person needs.
It is helpful for parents to realize that they are not ultimately in control of the destiny of their children, nor can any of their own actions save their children. The eternal security of a child is not determined by our ability to hold them to the faith. They are in the hands of God and His loving embrace.
In the first parable of Luke 15 we see the story of a lost sheep. As a good shepherd, Jesus leaves the 99 that are safe in the shelter to go after the one that is lost. This is the comfort that all parents can have in knowing that Jesus cares for their prodigal and that none of their children are ever out of His reach.
Seek Christ for Yourself, First
In an aircraft emergency, the flight attendant instructs us to secure our own oxygen mask first before helping a child. They have to tell us this because it is a parent’s natural instinct to protect their child even at the risk of their own well-being.
When a child grows up and walks away from the faith, the hardest thing to do is to let them go. Whether it is climbing up on a soapbox or following them into the pigsty to make sure they’re provided for, parents don’t want to be removed from their ability to influence their children. But scolding or enabling a prodigal is more likely to drive them further away than bring them to a place of repentance.
The second parable in Luke 15 tells us about a woman who lost a coin and cleaned the whole house in a panic in order to find it. That’s how most parents want to respond when their prodigals leave the home. They are willing to try anything to get their child back. The problem with this scenario is that the coin represents the Kingdom of God, not a prodigal.
If a prodigal becomes more important than Christ, then God might be using him to teach the parent a valuable lesson about the misplaced treasures of our heart. Jesus told His disciples they would have to leave their families to follow Him and if they didn’t go as far as to hate their own children, they could not be His disciples. This may sound like harsh language, but the reality is that if we cannot love God more than everything else, our prodigals will not be properly trained in how to put Jesus first in their own lives.
If we want prodigals to treasure Christ, we have to treasure Him more than we treasure them. And in treasuring Christ we can be comforted to know that He will always be faithful and gracious to us.
Training starts at home, but the opportunity doesn’t end once children grow up and leave the house. As we pray for the prodigals in our lives, we have to do so through the lens of the gospel and let it be a constant reminder of God’s grace. When a prodigal leaves the faith, in many ways, they are observing us even more closely. May they see in our weakness that Christ is our ever-present comfort and strength. It is never too late to train up a child in the way that they should go.