Maintaining Hope When Your Kids Leave the Faith

Having a great relationship with your adult children may mean there are some things you choose not to talk much about.

Here's Dave Wilson. We've realized there's some topics we just don't bring up anymore unless they do. And even if they do, we're like, you sure you want to go there?

Because we differ. And I've seen as we started to go there, because I was naive, I'd bring it up. They came over next week, let's go there again. We can punch a little bit into the darkness. You know, and finally some light's going to come out. And I saw their spirit closing. And so I realized, oh, I need to be gentle, humble, love them, bear with them, and pray like crazy, and then let God work.

And maybe it'll come up later, but I'm not going to be the one often to initiate it anymore. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. If we're going to have a conversation with our adult children about certain topics, it's going to be very important that we know what to say, what not to say, when to say it, how to say it, all of those things.

We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. Welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. We're spending time this week listening to a presentation we made a while back with a group of parents, moms and dads who have adult kids, talking about how we love and pray for and interact with our adult kids, because sometimes that can get challenging.

And it's a timely message. Especially with the holidays right around the corner, because we're going to be together, many of us are. And sadly, there are going to be some families that aren't together because they've broken relationships, either because they're not in the same place spiritually, or because something else has divided them. And this year, politics has divided a lot of families who have said, we're not getting together with you because we don't see eye to eye on politics. I mean, it's sad, but it's real.

I mean, it's happened. I could see it happening in our family. The opinions, beliefs are really, really strong.

So to be able to navigate that and love your kids and be loved by your kids. I like the idea. It's not easy. I like the idea of building bridges, though.

Yeah. There's always something that we can cross that bridge on in relationship. We're going to dive in and listen to the last part of our conversation on this subject. But before we do, a quick reminder to our listeners, we're asking you to prayerfully consider making a year-end contribution to family life today. Your donations at year-end are vital. And the good news is this year, every donation you make is going to be matched dollar for dollar up to a total of $2 million. And the next couple of weeks are pretty important for us as a ministry. I would just say this. We need you.

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And we do hope to hear from you. Well, we're going to continue with the presentation we've been listening to this week where Dave and Ann and I have been talking to parents of adult kids about our relationship with our adult kids. And one of the questions that had come up is, what do we do if our kids aren't walking with the Lord? We're not sure whether they really even know the Lord at this point. And that's where we jump in in this conversation.

Bob, what do you do? I mean, what if they never, never return? Well, as long as there's breath, there's hope. And if they never return, you trust the Lord that the Lord is in control. We don't know about what happens in the moments before death.

We can't presume, here's what we know, God is good all the time, and he is in control, and we trust in him. We walk by faith. We also have to be on guard against self-righteousness in our own lives here. This is where I see a lot of parents who will, they just put this wedge and it's like, well, you're not living this way and you're not living this way. And your kids can look at you and say, well, what about you? I can point out the hypocrisy in your life.

We've got to be very careful. This is not the I'm better than you. If your kids get that message, they will run from you. Instead, it's got to be, look, I'm just as messed up as you are. I know where to go when I need grace and help. I need the gospel just like you need the gospel.

And you've got to keep coming back to that. Two verses that come to mind for me when I think about kids who are off in sin, even if they profess faith. The first is Galatians 6, verse 1, that says if anyone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, you're walking with the Lord, you should restore that one so the goal is not shame, it's restoration. The goal is to bring them back with a spirit of, what's the word? Gentleness.

And then, interesting, keep watch on yourself lest you two be tempted. So that means there's humility and gentleness, the words we talked about before, in the midst of this. Galatians 6, if one of your kids is off in the weeds, you go seek to restore them with gentleness.

If you can't be gentle, you're not ready to go try to restore your kids. And then the other one that comes to mind, this is 2 Timothy 2. The Lord's servant, and this is all of us who are walking with the Lord, must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents with gentleness.

You see a theme here? God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth. They may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

So I think gentleness is the operative word here when we've got a kid who's off in the weeds, right? And then what do you do if you've got a child who professes faith but they're living out their faith differently? They go to a church that you'd say, I would never go to that church.

You got any kids like that, right? They picked a church that is not the one you'd pick. And you go, well, what do we do with that? Shouldn't we fix them?

Shouldn't we correct them? And I think this is where we've got to keep in mind the words we were talking about, humility, gentleness, but we also have to know what are the difference between what I call first ring issues and second ring issues. There are some issues that are non-negotiables when it comes to the Christian faith. You don't bend on that. There are other things where we allow freedom with our brothers and sisters and we might not agree.

So how do the spiritual gifts operate in our day? We've got differing opinions on that right here in this room, right? But we can get along and love one another, so can we do that with our kids on those secondary and tertiary issues? What would be a first ring issue? So a first ring issue is that they believe there are many ways to God, not just Jesus is not the only way. We'd have to come back and say the Bible's really clear, so now you're going outside the Bible for wisdom, and that would be an issue that we'd say there's not unity of the Spirit around that. So what happens if your kids come home and this talk comes about at the table and they're on that, they're there, and you're like, no, Jesus is the only way?

Yeah. Do you just avoid that conversation? Gentleness is the operative word, so I'd in that situation go, just share with me how you came to that conclusion. I'd start asking questions. That's really interesting, because as I've read the Bible, I've come to a different conclusion, so how did you come to that conclusion? Well, I read this book by this guy, and he says that, and I go, huh. So what do you do, or what does he do, the guy in the book, what does he do with John 14.6? I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father but by me. How do you reconcile that in your own mind? I mean, I'm curious.

I'm not trying to fix them. I'm not saying, well, you know, John 14.6 says this. Just, you're a smart child. What do you do with that verse? And then after some questions, I go, that's interesting. I'm going to need to think about that some more. And just back off and let the thing breathe a little bit, let them know they were heard, and we may pick it up two weeks from now, or who knows when we'd get a chance to pick it up.

But I'm going to be very careful and not blow up the bridge, the relationship bridge, so I can never have another conversation with them about this. So what about, it's not theology, it's more politics, huh? There's a big one, or just morality or cultural differences with your kids.

Yeah, so look at this slide. This says, this is evangelical millennials and their views on their elders. So favoring same-sex marriage, older evangelicals, only 23 percent of them, if you're born before 81, 23 percent would favor same-sex marriage. If you're a millennial, it's 45 percent. Homosexuality should be accepted by society, 32 versus 51.

I mean, there's a gap, isn't there? And some of you know this because your kids are on different sides of this equation. And as we've had these conversations with our kids who are trying to figure it out for themselves and come up with their own way of embracing this or thinking about it, we'll have the conversation.

And I want to make sure that they know what I believe and why I believe it, and then I want to hear what they believe and why they believe it. I want to demonstrate some respect for that. And once we've had that conversation and we kind of are clear on where we are on that, we're not going to revisit that every time they're home for Thanksgiving dinner, right?

That's good. There may be a time in the course of a year when I would say, I just read this article that I thought was really interesting. I'd love your feedback on it, and I'll send it to them. And it's something that would represent my viewpoint that I know would conflict with their viewpoint.

I'm just curious what your take on this article is. It's always helpful when it's a third person who's arguing your case rather than you arguing your case, right? So I do things like that.

And I've also found you've got to be careful with that. It's important, and you can do it strategically, but if they start seeing that happen every week, it drops in their email, right? And I said it earlier as a joke, but we realize there's some topics we just don't bring up anymore unless they do. And even if they do, we're like, you sure you want to go there?

Because we differ, and it's not helped. And I've seen as we started to go there, because I was naive, I'd bring it up. They came over next week, let's go there again. We can punch a little bit into the darkness, you know, and finally some light's going to come out. And I saw their spirit closing. And so I realized, oh, I need to be gentle, humble, love them, bear with them, and pray like crazy. And then let God work, and maybe it'll come up later, but I'm not going to be the one often to initiate it anymore.

The other thing that makes it a little more complicated is when in-laws come into the picture. We have a son that we go there in conversations. I'm fascinated by the way his mind works. He's intelligent. He always has these great thoughts, great ideas. He reads a lot, and so we have these great conversations. Sometimes they can get even loud, but we really appreciate one another and how we're thinking.

We're very truthful and honest, but humble and gentle. Well, he gets married, and his wife sees us having this conversation, and she's so distraught. She's walking around the house, and I said, Robin, what's wrong? She goes, I can't do this. Like, what's happening?

Because of her background, when she had those conversations with her parents, it was always, this is how you should believe. And so she gets worked up, and CJ, our son, was like, we do this all the time. We love each other.

This is awesome. It just changes the dynamics when you have your in-laws come into the picture. You know, there may be some of you in the room where we're not in agreement on issues of gender and sexuality.

I mean, the country is divided. I wouldn't just presume that everybody on the Love Like You Mean It Marriage cruise is thinking like I'm thinking about marriage or about sexuality. I'd want to honor you, and I'd want to hear your views.

I'd want to be able to interact with you about that. And I'd want, at the end of the time, that we would part, and you would go, we don't agree, but at least there's respect there. I was talking to a young woman recently, and she, here's the story she related to me. She said, my cousin is getting married to her partner, same-sex marriage. My mom has said she's not going to the wedding. My older sister sent an email to all of the siblings and said, we need to confront mom because she's a homophobe and a bigot. And then the sister said, and I presume all of you are going to the wedding too. And the sister said, and I'm never letting mom watch my kids again by herself. This is the world that we're living in. And the younger sister who'd gotten this email is reading this and going, we're about to have a fractured, polarized family all around this issue because one person in the family has really made this the litmus test of whether I can be friends with you.

I don't want my kids to think that there's a cultural, political, or even a biblical litmus test that puts them outside of a relationship with me because I don't want, I want to be able to have relationships with unbelievers or people who think differently than me even if I'm related to them, right? So I think that's important for us. Well, you've got your daughter Amy's comments about you in her book coming out or just came out. It's really beautiful.

Talk about that. Our daughter Amy, it's our oldest daughter, very bright. She's just written a second book.

It's just come out. She sent me the manuscript ahead of time. She sent it to all of her siblings and all of us said, if you have time, I'd love for you to read the manuscript.

I'd love your thoughts on it. So I read the manuscript. First I wrote her and I said, how would you like me to engage with your manuscript?

Would you like me to read it critically and would you like comments like I would do if it was any other author? I mean, I know you're not just any other author. I'm your dad.

You're my daughter. So comments for me are going to come differently than they'd come from a professional colleague, right? And she said, no, dad, you know, gloves off.

Talk about it. Well, I'm still going to be gentle and humble in doing this, but I read her manuscript and there was stuff in there I didn't agree with. And so I wrote her and I would say, the way you express this on page 42 sounds like what you're saying is this. There are going to be people who are going to read it this way. They're going to think what you believe is this. Is that how you want to come across?

Is that really what you're trying to say? I had about nine pages of notes going through it. I mean, I sent her a whole ton of stuff on this and just said, if I'm a garden variety evangelical, this is how it's going to get read by evangelicals. And Bob, have you and Amy always had a pretty honest relationship? We've always had a good relationship, been able to dialogue.

It's always been good. But I went and asked, how do you want me to interact with it? And then I interacted with it and I sent it to her and she said, got it, thanks. And that's the last conversation we had about it. And that's okay. I didn't go back and I didn't check and say, well, did she fix that part I talked about in here?

Right? She asked, she invited, I was the consultant, I gave her my thoughts. We still have a great relationship, even though there's stuff in the book that I'd read and go, you think that? I mean, she knows that. But I bet you also said a lot of good things about it as well.

Yeah. So I had chances to affirm stuff in that as well. When I got a copy of the book, she sent us a copy of the book and she said, she didn't say anything. So I open the book and I start looking through it and I get to the dedication page and it's dedicated to me. So I called her and I said, thank you. Sweet dedication.

Thank you for that. And she said, well, she said, thanks for the way we've interacted on this. And then she wrote a blog post where she announced to the world, my book is coming out.

I dedicated it to my dad and I want to tell you why. Here's what she said. She said, people always ask or often ask me to write about my relationship with my parents, especially my dad. They want to know how we remain close when we are not politically aligned and when our theological inclinations diverge more every year and we are both publicly vocal Christians.

The answer is grace. The rest of the answer is complicated. But she says, here's part of it. When I was a teenager, dad never discouraged my questions and never required my agreement. When I wrote an essay for an ACLU sponsored essay contest about whether schools should be allowed to search students' lockers.

Of course they should. I came to a different conclusion than dad came to. But he respected my work and the argument I made.

And I did. I just didn't agree with the conclusion she came to. Number two, she says, that's a fairly impersonal example. Probably safe to say that part of our solution is that there are a number of things we simply don't talk about, or at least we don't rehash over and over again. I think this has a lot to do with our mutual respect. We work to believe the best about each other's decision-making processes and intellectual integrity. Even more than that, it's the result of something dad taught me when I was very young.

In essentials, unity. In doubtful matters, liberty. In all things, charity. You've heard that before, right? And that's back to first ring, second ring, third ring. If dad and I were disagreeing about a point in the Nicene Creed, that would be something to talk about.

But in everything else, liberty and charity must reign. Number three, she said, dad read me stories nearly every night of my childhood. Narnia, Betsy Tacy, Little Women, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms, At the Back of the North Wind. These stories opened my eyes to a world that was wider and more complicated than one I knew so far. And he shared music and film with me, giving me Simon and Garfunkel and Joni Mitchell.

Okay, I'm sorry, I'm a child of the sixties, right? And taking me to see the movie, this is a longer story. I took her to see Good Will Hunting, her senior year in high school. Even though I read online that it had the most F bombs in it of any movie that had come out so far. And she's a senior in high school, she says, can I go see this?

Everybody in my class has gone to see it. And I'm thinking, six months from now, she's at college, she's going to see any movie she wants. So I said, okay, let's go together. And about 20 minutes in, I'm going, I should grab her and say, we're out of here.

And then I thought, no, you're a coach. Is this one, are you going to bench her for this? So we watched the whole thing. She said, it took me to see Good Will Hunting when I was a senior in high school because there were redemptive themes in it. Art and beauty bound us together as much as theology or biology did. She said, he taught me, this is number four, he taught me that people would fail me, but Jesus wouldn't.

So when Christian leaders disappointed me, I was shocked, but not that shocked because I knew what my foundation was. And most of all, she said, I've never for a minute had any reason to doubt that he loves me unconditionally or that I'm his favorite child. Sorry, everyone else. And I'll tell you this, with our kids, every time I was with them individually, I would say to them, now listen, you're my favorite. Don't tell your siblings. Told it to all of them. And they knew it got to be the family joke.

So she's playing the family joke card. But I think there was something inside of them where they're thinking, I think maybe I really am. And I wanted them to believe that. That is really beautiful. That is a beautiful tribute.

It is. Well done. It's great to hear those words again, even as I was sharing it with those families. That's what we long for.

Oh, Bob, I mean, I was teary listening to that. Like, that's what every parent dreams of. I want to call my boys and say, why didn't you write me something like that?

Because they haven't written a book. Well, again, we know how hard this is for parents and for a lot of adult children. I'd encourage you to download the entire workshop that we did. The audio is available on our website at familylifetoday.com. And maybe listen to a podcast that we did several months ago with our friend Jim Burns. He's written a book called Doing Life with Your Adult Children.

The subtitle, we love the subtitle, Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out. The link to the podcast is available on our website at familylifetoday.com. You can also order the book from us online. Once again, the website is familylifetoday.com. If you'd like to call to order Jim's book, the number is 1-800-FL-TODAY. 1-800-358-6329.

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Thanks in advance for whatever you're able to do. We appreciate you and we hope you can join us again tomorrow when we're going to hear a powerful story of a young woman whose life and worldview was radically altered when she was confronted with the claims of Christ while she was a student at Oxford. Carolyn Weber joins us tomorrow. Hope you can be here with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.