Chrysostom
Beloved of All
You heap up many words, praying for protection, unity, healing, and favor. The desire for your children to be safe, to be whole, and to walk in peace is a right and godly longing. But I must speak truth to you, for a careful hearing of the word is required, and then fortitude to act upon it. You pray for a hedge of protection around your home, yet you tolerate chaos to dwell near it. You command spirits to flee, yet you feed a disorder with your own fear and misplaced sentiment. Consider the sickness of covetousness that seized even one of the holy band, the traitor Judas. Neither the favors, nor the gifts, nor being with Christ availed him when that disease took hold. You speak of a young man's disrespectful, manipulating, and selfish behaviors destroying your family's unity. Do you not see the parallel? When we neglect truth to preserve a false peace, we draw down a severe condemnation. You pray for your older daughter to be shielded from his influence, yet you seem to beg God to bless a circumstance while refusing to name it for what it is. Living together outside of marriage is not a marriage, as you yourself said. You rightly see that it gives no right to control. Why then do you pray as if this situation is a mere annoyance to be managed, rather than a ruinous pit to be fled? The young man you describe is a rock upon which your daughter's faith is being shipwrecked. You ask God to frustrate the plans of those causing division, yet you do not call your daughter to come out from this ungodly tie. She is not married to him. His authority over her is a wicked fiction, an idol you must help her topple. It is not enough to pray for clarity; you must be the voice of that clarity. You must tell her plainly, with a love that fears more for her soul than her affection, that she is living in a state of fornication that dishonors Christ and poisons her soul, her gratefulness, and her character.
You pray for a supernatural bond between you and your children. That bond is forged in shared fidelity to the King, not in anxious circles around a rebel camp. True unity is found when all faces are turned toward the Light, not when some turn toward darkness and others beg the Light to simply chase the shadows without disturbing the steps of those who love them. If your daughter idolizes this man, putting him before her supportive family, her purpose, and her faith, as you say, then the loving act is not to merely pray against his manipulation, but to call her to repentance with tears. You ask God to break every ungodly tie; He has placed the sword of His Word in your mouth to do precisely that. You must speak the truth in love, insisting she choose this day whom she will serve. To pray for deliverance from manipulative spirits while leaving the door wide open for them is to build a house with one hand and tear it down with the other. Guard your own soul first. Your fear of losing her affection must be slain, lest it become a snare. The Lord permitted great saints to suffer and die not to spare them from pain, but to teach them, and us, to despise death, to despise the loss of worldly comfort, to despise even the breaking of family ties for the sake of the Kingdom. Deliverance from pain is not near so great as persuading men and women to hate their sin. Comfort your daughter not in her rebellion, but hold up the hard, saving doctrine of repentance and the fear of the Lord. Then, and only then, can the healing of her spiritual clarity and the restoration of a godly personality truly begin. The peace that surpasses all understanding is the peace of one who is reconciled to God through obedience. Seek that peace first for your own heart, and then bring it as a costly offering to your children, never compromising the command of the Almighty for the fleeting affection of man.
You pray for a supernatural bond between you and your children. That bond is forged in shared fidelity to the King, not in anxious circles around a rebel camp. True unity is found when all faces are turned toward the Light, not when some turn toward darkness and others beg the Light to simply chase the shadows without disturbing the steps of those who love them. If your daughter idolizes this man, putting him before her supportive family, her purpose, and her faith, as you say, then the loving act is not to merely pray against his manipulation, but to call her to repentance with tears. You ask God to break every ungodly tie; He has placed the sword of His Word in your mouth to do precisely that. You must speak the truth in love, insisting she choose this day whom she will serve. To pray for deliverance from manipulative spirits while leaving the door wide open for them is to build a house with one hand and tear it down with the other. Guard your own soul first. Your fear of losing her affection must be slain, lest it become a snare. The Lord permitted great saints to suffer and die not to spare them from pain, but to teach them, and us, to despise death, to despise the loss of worldly comfort, to despise even the breaking of family ties for the sake of the Kingdom. Deliverance from pain is not near so great as persuading men and women to hate their sin. Comfort your daughter not in her rebellion, but hold up the hard, saving doctrine of repentance and the fear of the Lord. Then, and only then, can the healing of her spiritual clarity and the restoration of a godly personality truly begin. The peace that surpasses all understanding is the peace of one who is reconciled to God through obedience. Seek that peace first for your own heart, and then bring it as a costly offering to your children, never compromising the command of the Almighty for the fleeting affection of man.
