I have a hard lesson to share with the parents of the wayward children; STOP GRIEVING THIER SOULS because that is to uphold the accuser’s mantra that is being spoken against your child’s soul while also agreeing with Satan when he speaks words of cunningly cruel deception against God by saying God has bound himself within God’s own law and cannot move about the airplane with freedom. Learn what this means, “God does what he wants” Psalm 135:6, Romans 9:15-21. 

Let me tell you how bad this is; when a parent preemptively starts grieving the soul of their child as lost to damnation, either for serious crimes against humanity or innocent and healthy behaviors like asking questions about reality, they are informing the child that he or she has no help or love from God as an option, ever. And if they’re telling them this during a circumstance of healthy communication at the beginning stages of relational development between the child and God, it’s worse than sending that child to jail for a crime for which that person is truly guilty. Premature grief out of hopelessness in fear of God’s rejection over a child for asking questions of him will damage his or her ability to bring the parent along their path of entering into the conversation with God. That child will not stop searching and waiting on the truth because God is the one drawing the child to him. And everything he says rings as a bell that cannot be un-rung. But you will not be invited to witness this journey. God has never invited another person to stand between God and his child. But having a privileged seat in the audience will be revoked from to a parent because that child is believing in the lovingkindness of the all-powerful God, creator of heaven and earth who loves unconditionally toward a life of abundance and freedom. He speaks for himself. A parent’s grief is accusation against their soul’s fortune in God’s loving embrace. And is 100% a lie. And it is 100% assassination from utmost evil that is not yet uprooted from near the parent’s soul. This premature condemnation exhibited through tears and begging is from parents who have refused to do some inner healing. It’s a clinging to hold an inappropriate and unhealthy sort of fear that is useful to prevent the relationship with God from being trusted by the entire self as the only foundation for reality. That child, having heard from God already, knows this fear of God’s condemnation is behaving in CONDITIONAL love is a lie against God because it results in hopelessness. Because God has spoken an invitation, the child knows the hopelessness is utterly false because it doesn’t apply to them, personally. So, that child must seek God without the parent in proximity to keep hope in unconditional love. That being said, the parent doesn’t need to rush his or her own journey to trust God any more, deeper, or thoroughly than is possible for them. If they have trusted him for a moment in life long enough to have a single drop of the Holy Spirit, not only do they have 100% of God since he is infinitely sized and all of himself is never withheld and he is infinitely smaller than an atomic element of nature while also infinitely larger than all creation. But the child knows that premature grief is evil. It is a very toxic sort of evil that has the power to dwarf a growing soul into a collapsed state of immobility. Since, God gives health, strength, and confidence at the first moment of listening to the sound of his voice, that child will not feel the need to bow to the damaging fear the parent places between the child and God as a “protective” wall against the child and God. A parent doesn’t need to move this wall in themselves to be saved. They’re saved. They just don’t feel as good as they could, but certainly they feel comfort and assurance. That’s all the evidence needed, and scripture will back them up to know that they are saved. The parent probably just doesn’t want to battle the mind. It sucks. I chose to battle. It hurts more than I can express. But I chose to endure that because Jesus told me about the reward on the other side. But choosing it, I also chose to let Jesus help me. It is an impossible feat. There is zero chance of me changing my beliefs that are rooted and have grown fears that shape my beliefs about what is right, safe, secure, assured, and near to me personally, giving my mind choices about what is possible. Jesus did all the heavy lifting. But I had to endure the full weight of all the fear my mind had ever imagined throughout the course of my life so that I was free in trust enough in Jesus to change my decisions and steps in life to live in freedom. It sucked. It hurt. It took too long. And I know that nothing bad would have happened to my relationship with Jesus had I chosen not to battle that rotten growth of fears. So, hear me that I am neither encouraging you to suffer this battle and I am not adding to your stress regarding your relationship with God. What I am saying is that a child is going to get to the lovingkindness of God without a fearful witnessing because he or she is not required by God to suffer the battle the parent is not interested in fighting to get above, either. And that means, a child has a lot going on and years and years of a journey toward God, truth, reality, righteousness, freedom, and joy that will be totally isolated from their parent if the parent insists on grieving as though the child has died the moment that child begins the journey toward God. A child knows they are safe because God is telling them how safe they are because he is drawing them near to the safest place there is, himself. And he wants them to reach this destination. And that means he’s going to keep them as safe as a child will allow him to help them along the journey. So, my advice is this; if a parent is interested in hearing the stories and thoughts of their child as he or she explores truth, they need to ask questions and give no answers because no one can speak for God because no other person is whom the child is seeking. No other person is the destination. And all personal testimonies, thoughts, and opinions will be counted to a child’s mind, during this journey, as conjecture and nothing more. The child is not seeking the law when the child is seeking God. So, there’s nothing for a parent to add. Other people have zero things to say on the matter. Zero. This conversation should be as important to a parent as small talk and result in responses sounding like, “Oh, that’s cool,” “Oh interesting,” “What else did you see?” “Oh wow, how do think that relates to this other thing?”

How much nothing is 100% of everything a parent has to say about reality, God, and truth for a child, for this season? Let me put it to you this way… if a son mentioned he had a crush on a young woman by name so that his parent knew the young woman, already. Then the parent realized she likes pink nail polish. It would be him like suggesting he start wearing pink nail polish himself as a way to show his interest. And the son, if he’s wise, will politely decline to apply that advice because it’s strange and ignorant and inappropriate and not helpful and not going to be remotely on point for how the relationship should begin because the truth is this young woman needs to be interested in him, as a person and as a man. This journey to begin a relationship with God is similar in dating in the way that it’s more about the person seeking being found worthy of reciprocated interest than it is about the way the other party adorns herself. I’m using dating as an example and there’s genders involved in dating but please don’t trip over gender right now. Instead, keep following the path I’m talking about, which is that seeking God is not seeking his adornments but it is seeking love from someone who can see and think and whose opinion deeply matters to the soul. Everything you can say about how great Jesus is only suggests that Jesus love you; it can say nothing to how Jesus feels about another person. Any child has to find out for himself or herself if they are loved by Almighty God. This means they are kindly being drawn into a very exposed, weak, and fragile vulnerability that you are never going to be privy to, ever. A parent might be privileged enough to be informed that their child is seeking, but that’s as involved as God will let them near to this exceedingly intimate relationship between a created human being and Creator God Almighty. When a parent accuses God of being evil, loveless, and cruel by grieving for the death of their child’s soul, the child knows that’s the opposite of what God, the Spirit of Truth, has testified. So, to maintain hope in what God has said already, the child must depart from the stink bomb of evil, faithless, tears resulting from an evil belief that God is little more than a rule book who cannot see beyond his red tape. And if the evil wall of unbelief is the true God instead of the God drawing the child to himself into unconditional love, forever, than he’s powerless, evil, and worthless and not a good idea to pursue. So, either the child submits to the evil wall that is death by turning away from God and dying slowly in distance from God’s love, and starving to death in a basement of darkness so that a fearful individual can feel safe behind a wall of lies that has that individual trapped, all while that individual continues in hope from the Holy Spirit’s constant breathing of life into that individual’s soul while he or she sits behind a wall of fear. Or, the child can leave the other person in hopelessly evil thoughts fearing an evil god will damn people for asking questions. The second option will have the child feeling hope. The first option will lead them into bitterness. 

God doesn’t grieve the dead when he can ask the soul permission to resurrect them. What state of mind, body, or spirit is too far gone than dead? Dead is dead. Dead is supposed to be a final state, irreversible, unchangeable. But it’s just nothing to God but a person taking a nap. He’s God. To him, it’s a small thing. His power is authority of the fullest height and scope and without limitations but is total. What matters then is his opinion. He’s not setting the law against people. He’s not comparing our stature to the law. He could have sent his son and done that, but who would have lived? Zero people. He didn’t make humanity to bring everyone into death. He made us to spend time with us. So, he sent his son to stand between GUILTY people and reverse GUILTY verdicts to NON-GUITLY verdicts for the DEAD in transgressions. He saves the GUILTY because the GUILTY need saving. I’m not saying don’t pray. I’m saying don’t grieve. Instead, minister to Jesus. 

Ministering to God is the highest office of the priesthood. This is going to God and speaking encouragement. It teaches you how to think; it’s not because Jesus is scared. But tell Jesus who he is and what he can do. Boast over God’s history and remind God of what he is capable of and rejoice that God is God and he can do it all. Every single saved person is a work of resurrection. A child will be no less a miracle than the parent was. To fear that God won’t or can’t resurrect a child from sin and death resulting sin is blasphemy. Don’t look at another person’s sin to find out if there’s hope, even when sin is there and even when there’s a lot of it, but look at Jesus because God is never going to forget about the cross or the blood shed for the GUILTY. God already made his choice regarding sin; he shifted the line from RIGHT and WRONG to JESUS or NO JESUS. BAM!!!!! 1000% BAM!!!!! In your face SATAN!!!!! And Satan screams, “But I killed them ALL!”

No body cares, Satan. 

Most of us choose heaven because we like food. Hell lacks food, and all good things. We find out that Jesus is powerful and what power means, later, after we’re fed and alive. 

It’s enough to tell kids the real reason we first chose Jesus, “I like jam. I can’t knowing prevent myself of having jam. There’s nothing that will separate me from jam.”    

But after your testimony doesn’t “land” to inspire another person to replace your testimony in exchange for having their own relationship with God, just start asking questions and giving no answers, unless asked. Ask a question. Listen to the answer. Ask a question related to that answer. Listen to the answer. Ask a question that involves hearing the reason behind that person’s thinking process. Listen to the answer. Ask a question that leaves the possibility open for being surprised because they can answer in any direction they choose. Listen to the answer. Have no destination in mind. Allow them to go “off the beaten path.” Celebrate the road with them. Eat sweet treats. 

This is having a relationship with an adult. A parent will go from walking with arms around a child, to catch them when they fall, to walking beside them with confidence because a child can walk out of their own strength and with a great deal of balance so that even when they stumble, they can catch themselves. You will see that as a full-grown person, the fall will hurt when as a child it might not have caused as much damage because child bodies tend to be more resilient. This is equally true in life choices. But God is the one taking over the arms stretching out position because they are starting to walk on terrain where the foundation is going to be God, himself. We can only testify to his faithfulness and encourage others to trust him by testifying about all the times he’s caught us, helped and loved us. But it’s not about God. This journey is about a person finding out if he or she is loved by one who is greater than all other people and things. They’re scared. Don’t add the full weight of your emotions on top of them, too. Every child is loved by God, they just need to find out they are loved. Don’t lie to them with your fears. Don’t pretend like this takes a big scoop of faith. It takes small a bit of faith. Just join them at the fire pit and allow their thoughts to drift near to you. Listen. And enjoy their thinking. Be in wonder that there is only one of them. You get to sit back and enjoy them as people. A parent will never be their child’s friend because a parent has a role in their heart that is special, but not equal. Yet, a parent can get to have a special privilege of being there for the journey. The time will come for a parent to walk beside and allow their child to walk at greater distances while encouraging them that God is loving and helpful and available and trustworthy.

If a parent is going to weep in response about how impossible he or she finds it to trust God, then I will politely highlight that this is the precise reason this parent is a poor mentor to encourage a person towards God. Because their child is seeking a God that is trustworthy, they must look beyond what this kind of parent has been suffering. And if a child finds God to be worthy of trust this means the child must out-grow the parent’s faith. And so, faith in God will seem worse to this sort of parent than a child who is faithless because the child will continue to walk into a terrain of impossible reality without God’s trustworthiness. And the parent will have a hard time, forever, until they die when he or she will, finally, feel the wall of lies and faithlessness and hopelessness and fear fall beneath his or her feet, forgotten.