CHRISTIAN PARENTS of ESTRANGED ADULT CHILDREN Community Group
Estrangement makes it difficult to talk about with family, friends, neighbors and church members. Christians are NOT immune to broken families. Talk about your experiences with those who know how you feel and get positive support through your Christian faith...."In these last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self...disobedient to parents,...
Have you ever been so discouraged about your estranged child that you wonder why he or she was ever born? Perhaps he or she was born to follow Satan? That there is no hope?
I encourage you to remember what he or she was like as a young child - do you remember the special talents, gifts, and uniqueness that showed that this child was special? I read the Bob Gass Devotionals every day and he is on a 4-day series I want to share with you. I will give it day-by-day. Enjoy & be blessed as I was!!!!
“Satan hath desired to have you…But I have prayed for thee.” Lk 22:31-32
Your child of promise (1)
Your problem child could be a child of promise! God has a special destiny in mind for them; that’s why there’s been so much drama around him or her. Satan has targeted them because he sees their potential. He has discerned God’s plan for them and he’s out to stop it. Would Satan do that? Yes! He used Pharaoh to get to Moses, and King Herod to get to Jesus before they were two years old. Why? Because one day they would arise as deliverers and fulfill God’s plan. Likewise, Satan will attack your child of destiny. Paul said, “It pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:15-16 NKJV). But Paul spent the first thirty years of his life going the wrong way before he met Jesus and started going the right way. So as the parent of a child of promise, what should you do? Pray for them! Knowing the special plan Peter would fulfill and the attack of Satan that would soon come against him, Jesus told Peter: “Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:31-32 NKJV). When your children are young lay your hands on them and speak God’s Word over their lives. And as they enter their teenage years continue to pray and speak God’s blessing upon them. Fight for your child of promise!
I encourage you to remember what he or she was like as a young child - do you remember the special talents, gifts, and uniqueness that showed that this child was special? I read the Bob Gass Devotionals every day and he is on a 4-day series I want to share with you. I will give it day-by-day. Enjoy & be blessed as I was!!!!
“Satan hath desired to have you…But I have prayed for thee.” Lk 22:31-32
Your child of promise (1)
Your problem child could be a child of promise! God has a special destiny in mind for them; that’s why there’s been so much drama around him or her. Satan has targeted them because he sees their potential. He has discerned God’s plan for them and he’s out to stop it. Would Satan do that? Yes! He used Pharaoh to get to Moses, and King Herod to get to Jesus before they were two years old. Why? Because one day they would arise as deliverers and fulfill God’s plan. Likewise, Satan will attack your child of destiny. Paul said, “It pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:15-16 NKJV). But Paul spent the first thirty years of his life going the wrong way before he met Jesus and started going the right way. So as the parent of a child of promise, what should you do? Pray for them! Knowing the special plan Peter would fulfill and the attack of Satan that would soon come against him, Jesus told Peter: “Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:31-32 NKJV). When your children are young lay your hands on them and speak God’s Word over their lives. And as they enter their teenage years continue to pray and speak God’s blessing upon them. Fight for your child of promise!
This promise goes both ways, so while above scriptures can help us in times of doubt, one should also turn to the most powerful of all.... Love God with all your mind, soul and heart and love thy neighbour as thyself. Jesus provided a perfect prayer... "The Lord's Prayer".... to live by daily.
Any EC who professes to be a Christian has fallen away when they do not abide by the above. even if we are babes in our Christ like walk, all having sinned, and all works in progress....
Our duty is also to pray for our EC and all and forgive, but also to go to the alter of God together if we have "disagreements" ..which includes our children...
There is also scripture that can help us when we have been trampled on unjustly... and when one invokes the name of God to bring good news even when in trying circumstances...Jesus says when those who do not hear and reject God ..it is ok to leave that place and dust off ones feet.
Jesus also says to forgive 7 X 77... which many parents do... but eventually...one has to leave them to their destiny as everloving11 has brought to light a passage that God is working in them...
Our job is to serve God by serving others, but also keeping our own selves healthy and well....
such a dynamic in throes of estrangements and longing for that person to be all they can be...which always includes good relationships with parents and family elders.
Otherwise they build holes in hearts of their own lives.... what a learning.
Lean on God..... a daily - hourly thing ...for many to be reminded.
“Jephthah…was a mighty man…but he was the son of a harlot.” Jdg 11:1 NKJV
Your child of promise (2)
Genes are powerful things! They can determine a child’s hair color, eye color, and the proclivities that make them like their father or mother. But when a child grows up and constantly makes bad choices it may not be genetic; it may be that the Enemy has targeted them because he’s discerned their destiny. That’s when God steps in. Moses’ mother placed him in a basket and hid him in the Nile River. But God arranged for Pharaoh’s own daughter to find him, take him to the palace, and raise him as a leader in Egypt. As a parent, when you do your part God will do His. When you do all you can for your child, God will intervene and do what you cannot do. Paul writes, “We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Ro 8:28 NLT). God has a “purpose” for your problem child, so keep loving them and praying for them however long it takes. The Bible says, “Jephthah…was a mighty man of valor, but he was the son of a harlot.” Your child may have been born in less than ideal circumstances, but that won’t stop God from blessing them. On the contrary, He can use every circumstance in their past to fuel their future with wisdom and strengthen them to fulfill the thing to which He’s called them. So don’t give up on your child of promise. Pray, “Lord, You promised it, I believe it, and it will come to pass!”
“I sought for a man among them who would…stand in the gap.” Eze 22:30 NKJV
Your child of promise (3)
Sometimes your child of promise may get into trouble at school, mix with the wrong crowd, and experiment with drugs, alcohol, gangs, sex, etc. They may rebel against everything you’ve taught them. But that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually respond to God and do His will. Before Saul of Tarsus became Paul the apostle, God had to throw him off his horse, humble him before his peers, and blind him for a season. Do you remember what Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road that day? “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks (thorns)” (Ac 9:5). Sometimes your child of promise will come the easy way, other times they’ll come kicking and screaming; and they won’t get there overnight! God took Paul into the wilderness for three years to detox him from wrong thinking and reprogram him with the truth of His Word, because that was necessary to equip him for his calling. So when your child of promise seems to be lost in the wilderness, blind to their destiny, or even down in the dust, don’t despair; God is still at work. What should you do? God said, “I sought for a man (or woman) among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of…” Build a wall of protective prayer around your child. “Stand in the gap” and pray God’s Word over them. Jesus promised that when you pray with authority here on earth, He will move heaven on your behalf (See Mt 16:19).
"Time would fail me to tell of…Jephthah.” Heb 11:32 NKJV
Your child of promise (4)
Your child of promise may be far from perfect today, and their transition into God’s Kingdom may be anything but smooth. “Time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of aliens” (vv. 32-34 NKJV). When you read these names and know their stories, you realize Satan will fight your child of promise from the day they’re born until the day they die. And if he can’t get to them, he will try to get to their children. Jephthah had to rise above the stigma of having a prostitute for a mother and a father who wanted nothing to do with him. But he overcame all this, led Israel to victory over their enemies, became known as “a mighty man of valour” (Jdg 11:1), and ended up listed alongside the Bible’s greatest heroes, including Abraham, Moses, Esther, Ruth, and David. Abandonment, abuse, addiction, absenteeism, anger, and aggression—none of these can stop God from using your child of promise if you’ll “stand in the gap,” pray on their behalf, and keep speaking God’s Word over them. “What is the gap?” you ask. It’s the difference between what is and what can be; the difference between who your child is right now and who God knows he or she will become in the future.