Session 2- Trusting God

As parents, it is easy for us to think in worst-case scenarios, especially during a son’s or daughter's years in college. As a parent, you no longer get to supervise and monitor what is going on. The nights of lying awake in bed at night waiting to hear for their return are over. It may feel like swapping one set of concerns for another set.

We know that the culture our child will enter into will be trying at times. They will potentially be faced with situations where heavy drinking, drugs and sex are encouraged, where mental health struggles are exacerbated, and even financial instability as they learn to budget on their own for the first time. It is natural to experience concerns knowing they will be entering into situations like these. The concerns are not our problem, it is what we do with them.

Will you allow your concerns to turn into trusting, healthy, Spirit-filled, action and communication that is good for our relationships with each other and God? Or will our concerns turn into fear that controls and manipulates, damaging relationships and quenching the movement of God?

Our natural tendency when faced with fear, especially with our own children, is to try and control and protect. This isn’t a bad thing, of course we don’t want our children to get hurt. No loving parent would! But, just as we established previously, our emerging adult is not our own. He or she belongs first and foremost to God as a child of God. He is their Father, Advocate, Provider, Friend, and Protector. He is also these attributes to you in your own life as their parent. As you think about the culture that your child is about to enter into, what concerns do you have? Have you identified these before the Father? What does He have to say about them?

Reflection Questions + Prompts:

Spend some time identifying your concerns for your child. Write a list of them out. Offer them up to the Father, and then ask Him what He has to say about them. Journal His response to your concerns and obediently act as His Spirit prompts. Is there anything He is prompting you to do? Is there a conversation He is prompting you to have?