Rather than micro-managing grown kids, give God room to work

We’ve been talking about how to “father” and “mother” grown children— especially when they’ve chosen a different spiritual path than you. (Sometimes, we refer to them as prodigals.)

Remember, you can’t control the kid, but you CAN— and should— control your castle.

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Here are the 3 principles we discussed in the previous episode:

✅ Live guilt free. Don’t blame yourself for what they’re choosing.

✅ Be willing to ask for forgiveness. At the same time as you live without guilt over the past, ALSO be willing to admit that you haven’t been perfect.

✅ Learn to love unconditionally.

In this episode of Tribe Talk, we outline 3 more:

✅ Allow sin to run its natural consequence in their lives.

Life has a great way of teaching the best lessons. Whereas we often want to CONTROL what our grown kids do, it’s best to allow life— and God— to show them the truth of His word. This often requires letting "life" do the teaching. 

Note: if you choose to micro-manage the situation, you’re actually interposing yourself into a space where God can’t fully work. So, give Him room to move.

Continue loving your “child” unconditionally, but let God’s grace— even in its redemptive forms— do its work.

As you do this…

✅ Guard your words.

It’s easy to talk about “what they’re doing” and discuss “how they’re wrong.” But, we don’t want to do that. We don’t want to complain and give the enemy of foothold.

Moreover, we certainly want to guard words spoken TO the child as well as those words ABOUT the child.

Rather than murmuring…

✅ Pray specially for them.

Rock says, “The Bible says to bless your enemies.”

Then— “How much more, then, should we bless our children? Even when they’ve chosen a different path?!”

He clarifies— “To bless someone means to release the force of Heaven to change their character… and, thereby, to alter their destiny.”

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Is that not what we want?

Note: we also discuss how to navigate this with step-parents…

(Hint: the marital relationship that’s intact, in the house, is still foremost. So walk as a unified front.)

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Listen to the previous episodes in this series at:

🎧 intro to the series: https://www.trministries.org/podcasts/tribe-talk/episodes/2147822468 

🎧 previous talk, principles 1-3: https://www.trministries.org/podcasts/tribe-talk/episodes/2147822469 

Rock mentioned Phil Waldrep’s book, Parenting Prodigals: https://amzn.to/3EIWMvv 

Watch the 2022 year-end review at https://www.trministries.org/2022