Guard my precious ones!

God has blessed me with five children, and ooooooh how precious they are to me! They are not perfect, but at ages 9, 7, 5, 2, and 8 months, the heartaches of parenting have only been tasted in very small dosages.

Yet, I am fully aware of the potentialities - their flesh is weak, their minds easily deceived, their desires could develop taste buds that find evil to be delicious. I must fight for their souls! I must do all I can and am responsible to do as their father. I must earnestly pray for them, pour the scriptures into their minds, model godliness, show them their faults, give them hope in Jesus.

I fall short here. It's easy to reside in a place of ease when my kids are delightfully innocent and joyfully tender.

The following testimony, from one of my modern day heroes, caused me to feel that urgency again. He tells of the agony of having a wayward son, and what he did to fight for his son and to battle his own sinful inclinations during that time.
And, by the grace of God, his prodigal son did return home.

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” (Psalm 126:5, ESV). My main memory of Abraham’s prodigal years is tears. As I knelt in prayer, I would remember the 9-year-old Abraham walking with me to 6:30 a.m. winter prayer meetings—willingly. I would take hold of Jesus’ cloak and cry:

“O Jesus, please, don’t let go of him.”

He was never more than a breath away. One moment I would be rejoicing over some simple blessing, and then suddenly he was there, a heaviness, an ache. I would wonder what he was doing. And I would pour another prayer into the great censer before the throne.

Then there was fear. Will he destroy himself? Will he ruin a girl’s life? Will he get a disease? Will he turn out to be an Esau? To survive I had to make the daily transfer: “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you” (Psalm 55:22). Every day the sorrow was new. Every day sustaining mercies were new (Lamentations 3:23).

All the while God was making me a broken-hearted pastor. God loves His people through the pain of His shepherds. None of our sufferings is wasted. We do not graduate from the seminary of sorrows in this life. But oh, how glad I am that this class is over, and Abraham is home. Thank You, Jesus, for not letting go.

You can read Abraham's short testimony of His conversion and some excellent insights in how parents of wayward children can reach out to them (wise advice from a former "wayward" child) here.

HT: Justin Childers