Treasures From God: Devotions From Time of GraceSample

Trust and wait

To love another human being means that you will hurt at some point, because love means that you let down your defenses. It is inevitable that other people will embarrass us, betray us, turn on us, reject us, put us down, or steal from us sooner or later. It is inevitable because of sin.

Among the worst hurts are those inflicted by children on their parents. How Eli, Samuel, and David must have grieved over their rebellious children. How could they not blame themselves? How could they not feel humiliated at the damage done to the family’s reputation?

Perhaps you are old enough to have tasted rebellion from your own children, including the bitterest pill of all, seeming rejection of the Christian faith you tried to pass on to them. What a lead weight on your soul!

When they reach a certain age, you can no longer make choices for your children--they must now choose for themselves, and any attempt at control by you will make them go in the opposite direction just to teach you that you can’t push them around any longer. Sometimes your only options are to trust and wait. To let go and pray.

And hold God to his promise: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6).