You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.

After someone shared an encouraging word about his son at the fellowship last night, we went into a time of prayer for our children and others we are concerned about. Over half of us have children for whom we are, at various levels, concerned. But all of us had someone we were happy to pray for. And just about all of us had had to come to the place where we need to let go and let God. In other word to trust Him with our loved ones. It is not easy, but then nobody said it was!

When the children are small it’s easy to feel that we are in control. We are not! If I had been in any doubt that, it would have gone out the window last year when my then five year old granddaughter had open heart surgery. Of course we have a lot of influence when the children are small, but sooner or later, if they are allowed to grow up, we just have to sit back and shut the heck up, or we should! In the discussion we shared various promises and principles that we hold onto that have allowed us to come to and stay at peace. One enduring one was “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household” (Acts 16:31).

Household salvations are harder to believe for in the midst of the rugged individualism of the North American mindset. But in fact the Lord is always interested in families, and I was reminded of how the Lord had answered a long term prayer for the father in a family I know. So it’s not just children. But we do need to release our loved ones to Him. In fact we need to think of our children as loaned to us, rather than that they are ours. In this way we give them back to He who in fact is far more concerned about them than we could ever be.

Father, thank You that Your love for our children, and those you have planted in our lives, is also far greater than ours could ever be. Thank You that they are safe with You. Thank You too for the peace that first and foremost You bring us to, and then for the keeping of that peace, as we continue to look to You and to trust (Isaiah 26:3). In Jesus Name Amen