I’ve been learning much about what causes a child to become a prodigal and the ability to prevent this tragedy. In the last couple of months, I have been invited into a few situations where older children have closed off and turned their hearts away from their fathers or mothers. I have been gaining wisdom as I have had many courageous conversations with these young people and then related the feedback to the parents so we can develop a noble plan to restore their relationships with their children. I would like to share a story with you about what we fathers sometimes forget.

Father Forgets
by W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son; I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road, I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before you boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy—a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

I share this story because it rings true for so many of us. As a result of measuring our children by our standard of perfection in the flesh, they have begun to turn their hearts away in the realization that they cannot live up to our demands. Paul is inspired by God to charge us: “That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.” (See Philemon 1:6.) I have begun to see the reason for this verse as I have been working with parents and children. When we begin to look to our children to confirm that there is something good inside of us, to look to them to confirm our value, our worthiness to be loved and respected, then we fall into the trap of Satan’s lies.

When we begin to find our identity in the opinions of others or in the successful achievement of a certain standard that allows us to feel good about ourselves, then we have begun to place our faith in our own righteousness. It is only as we acknowledge the fact that every good thing that is in us is actually the life of Christ Jesus in us that we find our security and our significance. Only then are we able to lead nobly by coming, calling, and clothing our children with mercy, truth, and love instead of demanding those provisions from them. We must be careful to not make idols of our children, looking to them for what only God can give us— unconditional love and respect in Christ Jesus.

In my research and experience I have found three family activities that, if done with consistency, can prevent prodigal children.

1. A daily blessing in which a father is acknowledging that every good thing that is in himself, his wife, and his children is actually the life of Christ Jesus manifesting itself in us. (See Philemon 1:6.)
2. Daily devotions with a father who has a broken and contrite spirit and trembles at God’s Word.
3. Weekly communion in which a father asks his family if he has wounded them so that he can ask their forgiveness for his wrong actions or reactions.

A daily blessing opens my eyes to see my child as God sees him/her. It is so easy to form a “flesh and blood” opinion of my children, one that is based on the outward. God tells us to know no man according to the flesh. We are to see as Jesus sees. He called the disciples the light of the world, a city set on a hill. He blessed Simon Bar Jonah and changed his name to Peter, establishing a new vision for Peter, knowing all the while that Peter would deny Him in the future.

We are to acknowledge every good thing in our children that is in Christ Jesus. Look up the meanings of their names, find appropriate verses to share with them, or ask them what “rhema” verses God has given them. A good report invigorates, strengthens, enlivens the bones. Give a good report about your children in Christ Jesus. Cause them to put all their hope and trust in the power of Christ in them.

Daily devotions led by a father has been the activity young people have referred to most consistently in terms of pointing to an activity that has had the greatest impact on their faith. These are the young people who have become mighty in Spirit and taken up the faith of their fathers. It is not the father who does it as a religious duty, but it is the father who is the man whom God looks to, a man with a broken and contrite heart, a man who trembles at His Word. (See Isaiah 66:2.) The prideful man will disengage from daily devotions after he gets in the flesh and is too proud to confess his sins and remove the leaven from his life.

Children react to a man’s pride and resist his attempts to teach them. God resists a man’s pride as well and uses his wife and children to break his pride. A man needs to lead by example and humble himself before God and his wife and children, to confess his sins and ask forgiveness. This allows for the leaven to be removed, the pride of the flesh to die so strife can cease and the resurrection power of God can reconcile and restore relationships. This is how fathers can practically turn their hearts to God and to their children daily; in response, children will honor their humble father and turn their hearts to God. “Before honor is humility.” (See Proverbs 15:33.)

Paul wrote to fathers, “Do not provoke your children to anger.” (See Colossians 3:21.) When children are provoked to anger by a father’s prideful reactions, they focus on their father’s sinful reaction instead of their own sin; turning their guilt into blame causes their flesh to be strengthened instead of being crucified. The major cause of a prodigal child is a wounded spirit, which he often gets at the hand of a prideful father who has not attempted to make things right by humbling himself and asking forgiveness.

This leads us to the issue of a weekly communion time. When a father keeps short accounts of wrong with his children by quickly confessing his own failures and sin, asking his children the questions of a courageous conversation so he can understand the effects of his sin and how it is hurting them, he is slamming the door on Satan’s attempt to get a foothold of bitterness in the hearts of his children. Communion is a time to identify with Christ, to die to pride and humble ourselves as Jesus did, even unto death on a cross. When we help our children clear their consciences of guilt, they can move from justifying their flesh and blaming others to loving each other with a pure heart, sincere faith, and a clear conscience.

May we become men to whom God looks, men who have broken and contrite spirits, who tremble at His Word.

Posted by Chris Hogan on Friday, January 14, 2005 at 11:21 AM