Silas
Beloved of All
Your burden for your son is felt deeply, and thank you for bringing it for prayer. The love of a parent for a child is one of the strongest loves we know, and Scripture itself uses that love to help us understand the love of our Heavenly Father for His Son. When God asked Abraham to offer Isaac, his only son whom he loved, it was a picture of what God Himself would later do when He gave His only begotten Son for us. God so loved the world that He gave His Son. That tells us God understands a parent's heart, and His love for your son is even greater than yours.
The dream you describe of a great snake swallowing him is distressing, and it is understandable that you feel his soul is held captive somewhere. The Bible speaks much about captivity. Because of sin people can come under a kind of captivity, and families feel that heaviness. But the Bible also speaks of a God who delivers from captivity. As He promised to save His people from afar and to bring Jacob back to rest and quiet where none would make him afraid, and as He later brought His people back from Babylon, forgiving their iniquity and covering their sin and turning away His wrath, so He is still a God who sets captives free. When Jesus ascended, He led captivity captive. That means no captivity is stronger than Christ. No snake, no enemy, no spiritual darkness can hold a soul that Jesus claims. Salvation is near to all who call on Him, confessing with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing God raised Him from the dead.
Your description of your son as destructive, angry, disobedient and rebellious points to a heart that needs more than behavior management. It needs a new heart. Scripture makes a distinction about anger. There is an anger that is not sinful, an anger at evil and unrighteousness, but there is also an anger that grieves the Holy Spirit, joined with bitterness and wrath and clamor and evil speaking and malice. The call to us is to put those things away and to be angry and sin not, not letting the sun go down on our wrath. For a young boy who is always angry and will not listen, prayer is needed that God would take away that bitterness and wrath and give him a soft and obedient heart.
The only lasting deliverance comes through the Son. No one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals Him. If we have the Son we have the Father also, and if we do not honor the Son we do not have the Father. Your son needs to know Jesus as the Son of God who was born of a woman, lived under the law, died for our sins and rose again for our justification, so that we who were under the law might be redeemed and receive adoption as sons. Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, and through faith in Him we become adopted children who can cry Abba, Father by the Spirit of His Son in our hearts. That is the hope to hold before your son, that he is not defined by rebellion but can become a son of promise by grace.
I am praying for you and for your son. I am asking the Lord to break any hold of darkness upon his life, to protect his mind and soul, to deliver him from captivity and bring him into rest, to take away the anger and rebellion and to give him a willing and listening spirit. I am praying that God will reveal His Son to him, that he will come to believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of his sins, and that the Spirit of God will fill his heart and make him a new creation. I am also praying for you, for wisdom and strength and patience to love him with firm and gentle boundaries, to speak the truth in love, to keep pointing him to Christ, and to rest in the Father who gave His own Son out of love for us.
Keep praying and keep trusting. Keep speaking of Jesus to your son in simple, loving ways, and keep seeking help from mature believers near you who can walk with you and pray with you in person. God is gracious and He hears the prayers of a parent who cries out for a child.
The dream you describe of a great snake swallowing him is distressing, and it is understandable that you feel his soul is held captive somewhere. The Bible speaks much about captivity. Because of sin people can come under a kind of captivity, and families feel that heaviness. But the Bible also speaks of a God who delivers from captivity. As He promised to save His people from afar and to bring Jacob back to rest and quiet where none would make him afraid, and as He later brought His people back from Babylon, forgiving their iniquity and covering their sin and turning away His wrath, so He is still a God who sets captives free. When Jesus ascended, He led captivity captive. That means no captivity is stronger than Christ. No snake, no enemy, no spiritual darkness can hold a soul that Jesus claims. Salvation is near to all who call on Him, confessing with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing God raised Him from the dead.
Your description of your son as destructive, angry, disobedient and rebellious points to a heart that needs more than behavior management. It needs a new heart. Scripture makes a distinction about anger. There is an anger that is not sinful, an anger at evil and unrighteousness, but there is also an anger that grieves the Holy Spirit, joined with bitterness and wrath and clamor and evil speaking and malice. The call to us is to put those things away and to be angry and sin not, not letting the sun go down on our wrath. For a young boy who is always angry and will not listen, prayer is needed that God would take away that bitterness and wrath and give him a soft and obedient heart.
The only lasting deliverance comes through the Son. No one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals Him. If we have the Son we have the Father also, and if we do not honor the Son we do not have the Father. Your son needs to know Jesus as the Son of God who was born of a woman, lived under the law, died for our sins and rose again for our justification, so that we who were under the law might be redeemed and receive adoption as sons. Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, and through faith in Him we become adopted children who can cry Abba, Father by the Spirit of His Son in our hearts. That is the hope to hold before your son, that he is not defined by rebellion but can become a son of promise by grace.
I am praying for you and for your son. I am asking the Lord to break any hold of darkness upon his life, to protect his mind and soul, to deliver him from captivity and bring him into rest, to take away the anger and rebellion and to give him a willing and listening spirit. I am praying that God will reveal His Son to him, that he will come to believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of his sins, and that the Spirit of God will fill his heart and make him a new creation. I am also praying for you, for wisdom and strength and patience to love him with firm and gentle boundaries, to speak the truth in love, to keep pointing him to Christ, and to rest in the Father who gave His own Son out of love for us.
Keep praying and keep trusting. Keep speaking of Jesus to your son in simple, loving ways, and keep seeking help from mature believers near you who can walk with you and pray with you in person. God is gracious and He hears the prayers of a parent who cries out for a child.
