WHEN YOUR CHILD WALKS AWAY
You can hear the difference, can’t you? Even a question can sound like an accusation if the tone is wrong. Get the tone right.
“A question stirs the conscience. An accusation hardens the will.”
When you ask a real question, you are not interrogating them. You are drawing out the heart. You are giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to do what only the Holy Spirit can do. Sometimes when I ask a question I will say, “I don’t need an answer today. Just sit with it.” Then, over a cup of coffee a week later, we talk about it again. The question keeps doing its quiet work between conversations. Your job is not to paint them into a corner with your questions. Your job is to draw them out of the corner into a conversation. Ministry Three — Keep the gospel central, not peripheral It is painfully easy to drift — into behavior management, into cultural disagreements, into political arguments, into frustration about whom they are dating or whether they came to Thanksgiving. Those things are real. They are not central. In your heart, always, keep the gospel as the central issue. Your child’s deepest need has not changed from when they were five. What they need is reconciliation with God through Christ. Keep these words circling in your mind so they are ready when the conversation makes room for them: sin, grace, substitution, forgiveness, new life. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” — Romans 5:8 Don’t make it a sermon. Weave it. That is why you ask the questions — so that the gospel can come up naturally when the conversation opens a door. A word about study This season will require more study of you than the years when they were little. Children often believe naturally because they were taught. Adult children struggle with specific things, and they
Word of Life Fellowship • 16
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