Let go of your guilt. You cannot even blame God when your kids refuse your counsel or abandon your spiritual heritage. No guarantee has been voided.
Many clergy parents are over whelmed with anger, shame, guilt, self-condemnation, and resentment when their PKs depart their upbringing. God seems to have failed His own Word. After all, doesn't the Bible promise, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6)?
What a promise! If it were true. Many of us have emotionally destroyed ourselves trying to discern what went wrong—either with our parenting or with God's promise. Some of us are uncomfortable blaming God for our prodigals, but satisfied to applaud our own parenting skills for those kids who "turn out OK." First a disclaimer. Since I am not a parent, I claim no authority about child raising. However, as a pastor, I do claim responsibility to "rightly divide the Word" to share some light and hope.
No promise in this proverb. This text is just what it purports to be. A proverb. Not a guarantee; not a promise. A principle by which to practice. The text does not assure pleasant out comes for faithful parents. Rather, it describes parental responsibility for learning their child's own capabilities and interests and then guiding them to find a fulfilling career path in harmony with their innate talents and interests.
Rather than an ironclad warranty that only frustrates and disappoints when events don't turn out as anticipated, the verse counsels parents to study the ways in which their particular child can be expected to be of most service and which career paths will bring the most happiness. Therefore, parents should recommend lifework choices in harmony with their child's natural bent and parental efforts should be directed toward this discovery. "The training that Solomon enjoins is to direct, educate, and develop. For parents and teachers to do this work, they must themselves understand the way the child should go."1
Good parenting does not eradicate free choice. Love always risks. Perhaps our Creator's greatest risk was free choice. Neither religious faithfulness nor parental skill eliminates free choice. Scripture never promises to reward your own spirituality by forcing your children's good behavior.
Note the clear example of Jesus' parable of the prodigal son in which the father's love represents the attitudes and actions of our heavenly Parent. Surely this is a model of the best possible "training up." Yet despite such parenting excellence, one son left home and the other (the one who stayed and claimed to have been faithfully obedient) journeyed just as far into rebellion. Remember, not all prodigals leave home.
The younger son wished his father dead—"give me my inheritance now." The elder son so plotted to possess every thing, when the old man finally would be out of his way, that he resented his own brother's conversion.
Both boys wanted nothing of Dad's values. Both expressed greater confidence in good works than in grace. The runaway reasoned that he would return home to earn his place through servitude, and the other believed that years of obedience ought to yield greater rewards.
God helps you love your prodigals. The parable offers insight and hope. You are not responsible for every choice your children make. Sometimes all you can do is wait for a change of mind and spirit. If the father could have changed his son by counseling against disobedience, chasing after the wanderer, scolding profligate lifestyles, or any other personal effort, He surely would have chosen for his child to avoid the traumatic consequences that inevitably follow rebellion.
Take courage. Our timing is not God's timing. Pray for your wayward kids. Never give up. You do not know how the Holy Spirit will work to turn their hearts and minds back again.
Do not tolerate behavior that endangers your safety or the security of your spouse and other children. But do not conclude that you can harass your children into the behavior you desire. Love unconditionally and avoid nagging. If you are tempted to criticism or to repeatedly express opinions about the lifestyle your child already knows you oppose, pray that God will perform the same miracle on you that He did for Daniel's lions. He shut their mouths!
Love unconditionally. Don't assume too much responsibility for their choices. Forgive yourself as well as your child and forgive your all-loving Savior who promises free choice for every child.
1 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Nampa: Idaho: Pacific Press® Pub. Assn., 1885), 131.
