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Summary
One of the most difficult lessons for a parent can be learning to truly place their children into the hands of the Lord. We naturally want to protect them, guide them, and help shape the direction of their lives. But there comes a time when we have to recognize that God is ultimately the One who is working within them.
Parents will make mistakes. We may say things we wish we had not said or look back and wonder whether we handled certain situations correctly. Yet God is not limited by our mistakes. He sees the heart, and He is able to work in our children in ways that we never could.
The conversation emphasizes that our responsibility is not to control the outcome of our children’s lives, but to love them, pray for them, and trust the Lord with them. There is a freedom that comes when a parent can say, “Lord, they are Yours.”
Rather than holding tightly to our children out of fear or worry, we can release them to the Lord and trust that He knows exactly how to lead them. We may sow the seed and others may water it, but God is the One who gives the increase.
Show Notes
Trusting God With Our Children
As parents, it is easy to feel responsible for how everything turns out in our children’s lives. But the discussion reminds us that God is the One doing the deepest work. Our part is to pray, believe, love, and trust Him.
Parents Make Mistakes
No parent has done everything perfectly. We have all said things we regret or made decisions we later questioned. Yet the Lord understands our hearts and is able to work beyond our failures and imperfections.
The Danger of Trying to Control the Outcome
When parents begin believing that they must make everything work according to their own understanding, they can easily move outside of the freedom God desires for both the parent and the child.
Giving Our Children Freedom
A powerful part of loving our children is recognizing when it is time to release them. We are given the privilege of helping direct them toward the Lord, but we were never intended to possess or control their lives.
Love Them and Pray for Them
Sometimes there is nothing more that we can do physically to change a situation. In those moments, our greatest ministry may simply be to love our children with all our hearts and continue praying for them.
Looking for the Spiritual Answer
We often look for a physical solution to situations involving those we love. But there are times when the answer is spiritual, and God may be asking us to step back and allow Him to work.
God Gives the Increase
We may sow seeds into the lives of our children, and others may help water those seeds, but only God can bring forth the increase. That realization takes the pressure off us and places our confidence back where it belongs—in Him.
Quotes
- “God’s the one doing the work. All you can do is pray and believe.”
- “Don’t worry about your children. God’s got that in control.”
- “God looks on the heart and so do your children.”
- “What’s my greatest gift to my kids? Freedom. I turn you over to the Lord.”
- “Love them and pray for them.”
- “Turn them over to the Lord. They’re His.”
- “One sows the seed, another waters, but God is the one that gives the increase.”
Scriptural References
- Malachi 4(6)— God turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.
- Proverbs 22(6)— Training up a child in the way he should go.
- 1Corinthians 3(6-7)— One plants, another waters, but God gives the increase.
- Hebrews 12(9-10)— Earthly fathers discipline their children for a time, while our heavenly Father works for our ultimate good. The conversation refers to this principle while discussing the temporary role parents have in directing their children.
Takeaway
Our children belong to the Lord.
We have the privilege of loving them, teaching them, praying for them, and pointing them toward Him, but we were never meant to carry the responsibility of controlling the outcome of their lives.
There comes a time when faith means opening our hands and saying, “Lord, I give them back to You.”
That does not mean we stop caring. It means we stop allowing fear and worry to control us. We continue loving them. We continue praying for them. And we trust that the Lord is able to reach their hearts and accomplish what we never could.
We sow. We water. But God gives the increase.
Transcript
Turning Our Children Over to the Lord
Ron:
Welcome to Live Behind the Veil. I'm Ron, your host, and I'm glad you're with us here today. If you're a parent, I think you'll understand how easy it is to carry your children in your heart. We want the best for them. We want to help them make good choices, protect them from mistakes, and sometimes we find ourselves worrying about where their lives are headed.
But one of the hardest things the Lord teaches us as parents is that our children really belong to Him. We do our best to raise them, love them, teach them, and point them in the right direction. And along the way, every one of us makes mistakes. There are things we wish we had done differently, things we wish we had said differently, and moments we look back on and wonder if we got it right.
But our hope isn't in having been perfect parents. Our hope is knowing that the Lord loves our children, knows their hearts, and is able to work in their lives in ways we never could. In this conversation, we're talking about what it means to release our children to the Lord, to stop trying to control every outcome, and to simply keep loving them, praying for them, and trusting God with their lives.
I think this is something a lot of us can relate to, so let's listen together.
Sherry:
The thing that, that keeps coming to me is what's in Malachi, the hearts of the fathers returning to the sons, and the sons returning to the fathers. That one's a hard one.
Debbie:
Why do you think that one's so hard? Who's responsible for that? The Lord's responsible for that.
Ken:
God's the one doing the work. All you can do is pray and believe.
Debbie:
Even when we say things that are wrong and we do things that are not right The Lord is the one that's in control, and He takes the authority. He is the ultimate control over their lives. I'm not.
Lois:
And I think it's something that you have to go through in this life. What greater thing can deal with you than your kids?
You can't evaluate it. We tried to train them up in the way they would go. Like you say, Debbie, we made lots of mistake.
Debbie:
But we made some good ones, too.
Ken:
I don't think anybody came up with the right kind of handbook to do what we've been asked to do, and really knowing our kids. I had no idea what it meant to be a father.
Believe me, I have learned what it means to be a father. We don't know what the outcome of all of us raising our children's gonna be.
Lois:
Don't worry about your children. Don't worry. God's got that in control.
Ken:
He's the one doing the work. Any time we get the idea that we have to make things work, you know, out of our perception and understanding of what it means to be a mom and dad, we miss it a mile.
Because there's parts in that that you say things you didn't mean to say, or you do things you, you regret later on. God knows we're all gonna make mistakes, but it's the heart. God looks on the heart and so do your children. You have no idea what's hiding behind those little minds and heads that you look up and remember.
Dale:
What you're saying, Ken, takes us to Corinthians. In Corinthians it talks about parenting and how can you provide salvation for your kids. You have to set them free. The worst thing that can happen is a parent try to hang on to a child.
Ken:
Oh, it is the worst.
Dale:
Because then both the parent and the child lose life. Because it's out of order. God made the provision, and we know it's in Romans, you have fathers that discipline as they see fit for a certain length of time, and then you present them to the Lord. God didn't give you those children permanently. You are temporarily taking and pointing them.
He may be even pointing them the wrong, in the right direction as far as you're concerned. There's so much freedom that God wants to have- In our children. What's my greatest gift to my kids? Freedom. I turn you over to the Lord.
Ken:
No, don't worry about your kids. Please don't do that. Love them. And the Lord is going to be the one that ministers to the hearts of your children. You'll never be able to do what needs to be done in anybody that you love, especially if they're leaning on you or looking to you for some, some kind of a sign or acceptance or whatever it is. The only thing you can do is love them with all your heart.
Debbie:
Love them and pray for them.
Dale:
You know what's interesting? We take so much initiative out of our own thinking instead of s- letting God lead us. But I really think if we go- if we could really see ourselves, we got a lot of stories to tell about our successes, which is God moving through us. And many times we don't, we didn't even know it.
That's what's so beautiful about it, is to keep our focus set upon Him, and we are moved many times that we look for a physical answer to a situation. We need to stop, back up, and look and see that there is a spiritual answer that is effective, and many times you're not included. You've gotta turn these kids over, whether you're, you fathered them or not, turn them over to the Lord.
They're His.
Ken:
One sows the seed, another waters, but God is the one that gives the increase.
Ron:
You know, I think one of the biggest things we can take away from this conversation is that we don't have to carry the full responsibility for what happens in our children's lives. We love them, we pray for them, we do everything we know to do, and yes, we're going to make mistakes along the way. But at some point, we have to come to that place where we can say, "Lord, they belong to you.
I'm trusting you with them." That can be hard, especially when we see them making choices we don't understand or going through things we wish we could fix for them. But sometimes the greatest thing we can do is to stop trying to make everything work ourselves and give the Lord room to work in their hearts.
That doesn't mean we stop caring. It doesn't mean we stop being there for them. It means we love them without trying to control them. We pray for them without carrying fear, and we must trust that the Lord is able to reach them in ways we never could. So if you're caring concerned for one of your children today, maybe this is a good opportunity to put them back into the Lord's hands again.
Keep loving them, keep praying for them, and trust that God is still working even when you can't see what He's doing. Thank you for spending this time with us on Live Behind the Veil. We hope you would join us next time.