When Your Child Rejects the Faith

Series: Standing Firm in Shifting Sands: The Gospel in a Transformed Culture | Equipping the Next Generation | Day 6

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20, NIV)

Good morning, friends! There is a particular kind of grief that has no clean name. It is not the grief of a funeral, where the loss is visible and the community gathers around. It is the grief of watching someone you raised, someone you prayed over and sang to sleep and brought to the Lord’s table, walk away from the faith that gave your own life its foundation. If you have lived that grief, or are living it right now, this devotion is written for you. You are not alone, and the God who sees you has not turned away.

The Weight Is Real

We need to say plainly what this experience actually costs. When a child rejects the faith, the pain is layered in ways that are difficult to separate. There is the immediate ache of a relationship changed. There is the spiritual fear for someone we love. There is often a quiet, relentless voice asking whether we failed, whether we said the wrong things or too few of the right ones, whether we modeled what we professed. That voice is worth listening to, not to drown in guilt, but because faithfulness asks us to examine ourselves honestly. We have not been perfect. None of us have. We have been impatient, distracted, inconsistent. We have sometimes let the noise of daily life crowd out the quiet moments where faith is passed from one heart to another. God’s Word never calls us to pretend otherwise.

But here is what the same Word makes equally clear: we are not the authors of anyone’s faith. The Holy Spirit creates faith through Word and Sacrament, and He has never subcontracted that work to us. We are not powerful enough to give faith, and we are not powerful enough to take it away. When a child walks from the Lord, the brokenness of this world and the real enemy of souls bear far more responsibility than any imperfect parent who prayed and tried and fell short. We carry our failures honestly before God. We do not carry what was never ours to carry.

A Father Running

Jesus told a story about exactly this kind of moment, and it is one of the most carefully drawn portraits of love in all of Scripture. “Jesus continued: ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.’” (Luke 15:11-13, NIV)

The father in this parable does something remarkable when his son demands his inheritance and walks out the door: he lets him go. He does not chase him down the road or withhold the inheritance to force compliance. He releases his son to the consequences of his own choices, and then he waits. That waiting is not passive resignation. It is the posture of someone who has not stopped watching, not stopped hoping, not stopped praying.

When the son finally comes to his senses and begins the long walk home, the father is already watching. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20, NIV) This is the detail that should stop us entirely. The father had been watching so long and so intently that he recognized his son’s silhouette before the boy had crossed the field. And when he saw him, he ran. Middle Eastern fathers of that era did not run; it was considered undignified. The father ran anyway, reckless with love, because the one who was lost was coming home. This is a portrait of our God.

The parable is not ultimately a prescription for what parents should do, though it teaches us much. It is a revelation of the character of the Father who watches every prodigal, who never stops seeing even when we cannot, who is able to reach the ones we love through means we have not imagined and at moments we never expected. We pray, and then we entrust. That is the faithful work remaining to us.

The apostle Paul gives us one of the most sustaining promises in all of Scripture for exactly this kind of waiting: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6, NIV) God begins His work in baptism, in the hearing of His Word, in prayers spoken over a child in the dark of the night. That work does not simply evaporate when a child grows up and walks away. God does not abandon the seeds He plants. He is faithful to complete what He begins, and His timeline is not ours.

We also hold onto the steady promise of Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (NIV) Even the prodigal years are not outside God’s sovereignty. The distant country, the squandered inheritance, the moment of coming to his senses in a far-off field: God was at work in every chapter of that story, and He is at work in chapters we cannot yet see. Lamentations 3:22-23 anchors us further: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (NIV) New every morning. For us. For them. For the child still far off and the parent still watching the road.

We do not pray once and stop. We do not hope for a season and then give up. We bring our children before Jesus Christ, who bore our failures and theirs at the cross, who rose to intercede for those He loves, and who is more than able to reach the ones we ache for. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15, NIV) We ask. We trust. We keep watching the road.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I bring before You the child of my heart who is far from You right now. Thank You for the promise that You have not forgotten them, that Your mercies are new every morning for them as they are for me, and that You are the Father who watches the horizon. Forgive me for the ways I have fallen short. Forgive me for the moments I was distracted when I should have been present, silent when I should have spoken, or careless with the faith I was entrusted to pass on. Thank You that my failures are not the final word, because Your grace is.

Today, I choose to entrust this child to You. I cannot reach them the way You can. I cannot see what You see or work the way You work. Help me to keep praying faithfully, to love without conditions, and to be ready to run when I see them coming home. Give me patience for the waiting and a peace that passes understanding to guard my heart through it. Remind me each morning that You who began a good work are still at work in them, and that nothing is too hard for You. I trust them to Your keeping, the same keeping that has held me through everything. In Jesus’s name, I pray. Amen.

As we carry this word through the day, let us remember that the father in the parable never stopped being a father. He did not resign his love or close his heart. He kept the watch, and when the time came, he ran. We are not asked to stop loving, stop praying, or stop hoping. We are asked to trust the God who is mightier than any distance a heart has traveled, and who delights in bringing the lost home.

We praise You, Lord Jesus, for being the Savior who seeks what is lost and rejoices when the straying are found! Father, Your love runs toward us even before we have finished turning around. Holy Spirit, You reach into hearts and places we cannot go. All praise to the God who never gives up on His own!

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

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