Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

 Our youngest daughter and her husband just had a baby girl. As I watched them cuddle this precious life, all I could think about is how their lives will be changed forever. All the love, care, nurturing, and the life events they’ll oversee; (learning to drive, getting a job, going through school, getting married…etc), they have a huge responsibility ahead of them. From a Christian perspective, they are responsible to ensure that sweet baby girl is brought up in a home where the love of Christ is shared, talked about, and learned at home and in church. I know them well, and I know they will provide all that God expects of parents raising a child.

 For you parents who have adult children, what’s expected of you now? Just like someone who’s in a professional career, continuing education is necessary to ensure the employee keeps all he/she has learned fresh in their memory and learns anything new as they go through their years of employment. The same is true of parents with adult children, you must continue to provide unbiased advice as they learn their way through adulthood. Once they leave the home they’ll be exposed to so many varying philosophies about life that some might redirect them away from what they’ve learned as a child, leading them down a path of complete disobedience to God.

 Maybe your adult child falls in that category of living opposite of what they learned in the home and at church. Everything you’ve shared with them about their choices has fallen on deaf ears. They only thing you can do at this point is release them into the hands of God, so He can work in ways you can’t, to bring them back to the spiritual roots of God’s love, forgiveness, grace and mercy. Even if your child is on the straight and narrow, continue to pray God’s protection over them. It would be a shame to see all those years of hard work providing them spiritual guidance to be thrown out the window because you didn’t keep them covered in prayer and continued to provide wisdom and guidance, even as they mature into adults. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:16