God Is With Us by Susan Barclay

One of my favourite scripture verses these days is Isaiah 43:2:

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you (NLT).

God is with me, even in shark-infested waters!

Some of my Inscribe posts over the last year have described or alluded to challenges my husband and I face with our prodigal children. This is new territory for us. From birth we brought up our son and daughter to know and fear the Lord. We dedicated them as infants, took them to church and youth group, prayed with them, thought we modeled a life of faith. Both of them made decisions for Christ and were baptized of their own volition, our daughter spent three years at Bible College. Now both are walking apart from God. It's all very surreal.

Without Christ to walk alongside us in this journey, where would we be? It's unfathomable. He is our hope. He gives us peace. We know that God is faithful. We know that He is good. He doesn't want anyone to perish and He has good plans for us. 

He has good plans for our children too. We know that; we believe that. We are "certain that God, who began the good work. . .will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns" (Philippians 1:6, NLT).

This new territory is fraught with unknowns: When will God move? Is He at work even now? What will He have to do to restore our children to Himself? How long will it take? How difficult will they make it? And so on.

There is little much we can do when our children won't listen. We can pray! We can invite others to pray alongside us. We can search the scriptures for encouragement, verses that speak to God's character, His nature, and of His promises. We can find encouragement in the testimonies of prodigals who have returned and rejoice in their stories. We can continue to show love to our wanderers. We can seek out others who have walked similar paths and invite them to mentor us. We can ask God what He would have us do as we wait on Him.

Where two or three or gathered, He is in our midst

One thing this journey has taught us is greater compassion. You never know what someone else is growing through. We need to have empathy and patience with one another. Also to rejoice in trials, because "they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love" (Romans 5:3-5, NLT).

There may be many twists and turns in the road ahead, perhaps new territories for which we will need increased faith to step out of our comfort zones. Thankfully, God has promised to never leave us or forsake us.

And just as Christ died for our sins, He died for the sins of our children. Since there was hope for us, there is also hope for them. As long as there is life, the story isn't over. What a day of rejoicing that will be. I am already planning the prodigal returns parties! 

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Susan Barclay maintains a website at www.susan-barclay.blogspot.com and has recently returned to blogging there on a semi-regular basis.