God Is God

This is the second half of a chapter entitled, "How Come My Children Don't Believe After All I've Done for Them is the Wrong Question." It will refer back to earlier parts of that chapter, so if you haven't read that post yet, you can read it here. In this chapter, I know I'm getting into some potentially controversial stuff, and what I so appreciate about Substack is the opportunity to "think out loud" and get some feedback, so please, let me know what you're thinking. Feel free to challenge or confirm my theological reasoning here. I want to be a comforting pastoral voice for hurting parents, but I realize my need to lean on the body of Christ to hone the truth of the message, its tone, and its application. Thank you so much for being a part of this--and if you're one of these hurting parents, I pray this will encourage and bless you.

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I first started to title this section, “Let God be God” and realized how stupid that is. God is God, whether I think I’m “letting” Him be God or not! But my intended point is that even though we want something more than anything else—our children’s salvation—we can’t “out God” God and force His hand to make it happen—not with our “obedience,” unbroken prayers, years of fasting, or giving up all we have.

John White addresses this in a forceful manner. “God refuses to be the instrument of anything or anyone. Yet Christians unconsciously try to use him like that—by the ferocity of their faith, by their attempts to bargain with him.”[i]

Please, for your own sanity, just stop that. Your child’s salvation doesn’t rest on your prayers, your wisdom, your “faith” in your faith, subjectively trying to drum up a belief that thinks, “Since I have no doubt, what I want to happen will happen.”

God doesn’t give up being God to anyone—nor should He, least of all to you or me. It is far more beneficial for you to draw near to God for comfort and encouragement than to turn your relationship with God into a wrestling match over the current and future spiritual state of your children.

By all means, present your requests to God (Philippians 4:6)! By all means, fast (Matthew 17:21). But don’t make your relationship with God about your child’s relationship with God. Those are two different things. We are to follow God because He is God, not because doing so will guarantee our children’s salvation.

There is so much about God that we don’t know, we can’t know, and it would be tragic if you allow your child’s antipathy toward God to become a wedge between you and God.

If God granted none of my wishes—for my own sake or for my family’s sake—He has already treated me better than I deserve for what I have in Jesus. He is my friend and Savior, but above all that, He is my God, with all that implies. To me, that means I can and should present my requests to Him, but I must refrain from telling Him how to do His job or trying to control Him or coerce Him or use my affection toward Him as “leverage” to get what I want. What horrendous (and futile) manipulation that would be!