Trusting God With Your Children

"Children, you belong to God…” ~ 1 John 4:4

The day that my young adult son moved out and left the nest, I really began to understand what it means to trust God with your children. For the first time, I no longer had direct influence on his day to day decisions and actions. Someone asked me if I cried the night he moved out, even to my surprise, I did not. I actually had a sense of peace and slept like a baby because I knew, understood, and accepted that this was a necessary part of his journey towards figuring out his purpose in life.

The high school experience definitely had its challenges for both of us. It took a lot of prayer and support from friends and family to get through some really difficult times, but God saw us through. Often times I would pray, and ask God to prevent him from experiencing certain things or from getting close to certain people. But as each year passed, I realized more and more that this was his life and his journey no matter what big plans I envisioned for his future. Who am I to decide what he should or should not experience on his path to self discovery?

Recently, I read a great book by Iris Delgado titled, “Satan, You Can’t Have My Children.” The author writes about the importance of covering our children in prayer but advises that, "Parents should avoid controlling prayers. Controlling prayers start by focusing on the negative and by asking God to change, sever, transform, stop, bind, and remove. They tend to bring upon the person a burden of guild and condemnation. Instead, we should thank God for our children and His awesome plan for their lives." She also notes, "when she sees a relationship develop that she feels in her spirit is not in God’s will for her children, she immediately enters into God’s presence, and thanks Him for his perfect plan for them." She encourages us to, "pray in faith and trust God to intervene in their lives." She challenges us, "Do not be moved by what we see, hear, or feel. Confess and declare all of those good things that we expect to see manifest in our children’s lives. Allow God to be God."

We often try to prevent our children from experiencing certain hurts, failures, and disappointments. But it may be the very experience that we are trying to prevent that is very necessary for our children to become who God has ultimately called them to become. Our children are not our own. They belong to God. As parents, we are on assignment. Our assignment is to raise them according to His word and release them.

“Bring up a child by teaching him the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn away from it” ~ Proverbs 22:6 (NLV)

This doesn’t mean we stop parenting at some point. The parent-child covenant is never-ending. They will always need our support and encouragement. However, once our children become teenagers and begin making decisions for themselves, we begin to lose our starring roles in the story of their lives. It will be their life experiences that determine the theme, the plot, story structure, characters, setting, style, and tone of their story. At some point we will only be in limited scenes in the role of supporting cast. Later, we may even become Extra’s making cameo appearances as needed. Eventually, we might simply take a front row seat in the theater with our popcorn and become mere spectators, watching their story unfold and reveling in the beauty of all that God has done with and through our children.

Learn to truly trust God with your children. Trust that He has a perfect plan for them, just as He has for each and every one of us. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is also your God and your children's God. He is a promise keeper. We just have to trust Him.

Remember you are not alone.

Embrace and enjoy the journey...

God Bless!