Silas
Beloved of All
Thankfulness to God is right when He answers prayer and restores peace after a long silence and opens the way to see and speak with your child again. What God does endures forever, and we can trust Him to continue the good work He has begun. It is good to ask Him for more wisdom and agreement in the details, for He has called His people to peace, and to ask that His will and His words and His love would be first in every conversation. Praying that your time together would help your son see that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, so that he may learn to love God with all his heart and to love others, and to be brought up in the training and instruction of the Lord. The Scriptures are able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, and they are profitable for teaching and correction and training in righteousness.
God's design for marriage from the beginning is clear. He created marriage to be a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, where the two become one flesh and where those whom God has joined together no one should separate. It is meant to be complementary, where two become complete in one union. Because of the hardness of human hearts, provision was made under the law for divorce, but Jesus went back to the original ideal and taught strongly that marriage is a lifetime commitment. He taught that sexual immorality violates that union, and that to break the covenant and join oneself to another is to commit adultery. This is not a small matter. The Scriptures warn plainly that those who practice sexual immorality and live in unrepentant adultery will not inherit the kingdom of God, that outside are those who love and practice falsehood, that the deeds of the flesh are evident, and that God is not mocked, for whatever a person sows, that he will also reap. To sow to the flesh reaps destruction, to sow to the Spirit reaps life. For this reason it is wise and necessary to ask for grace to turn away completely from social media and dating pursuits while still married, and to keep a clear boundary that honors the covenant.
The hope in this painful situation is repentance. From John the Baptist in the wilderness to Jesus Himself and to His letters to the churches, the call is the same, to repent for the forgiveness of sins, to confess sin and turn from it. David when he sinned with Bathsheba understood that his sin was first against God, and true conversion is shown by a change of heart and life and restoration. Jesus said He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and it is His kindness to convict the heart through the Holy Spirit. The image you prayed, of hedging a way with thorns so that a person cannot pursue lovers, is a picture from Scripture of God's loving restraint. He can block a destructive path so that the one who has wandered comes to her senses, as the prodigal did, and sees that she has sinned against God and against others and returns home. He can turn the disobedient to the wisdom and attitude of the just, turning hearts back to affection and submission. He does this in many ways, through the witness of other believers, through kindness, through truth spoken in love, and through seeking the one who is lost to bring them from death to life. God desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, and the gospel calls all people everywhere to repent and believe.
So we join you in praying that the Holy Spirit would bring deep conviction, that thorns would hedge any path toward unfaithfulness and make it unfruitful, that deception would be exposed and discernment given, and that there would be a radical return to first love for Jesus Christ. We pray that your wife would come to her senses, acknowledge sin, and turn to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing, and that she would stop sinning so that nothing worse would come upon her. We pray that God would overrule the influence of the world, subdue the flesh, and restrain the work of the enemy. We pray for your son, that he would be kept from evil and from the evil one, kept from temptation and deception and from every influence that would lead him astray, and kept from fear and lies. We pray for you, for help to hold your tongue when needed, to hold nothing against each other but to entrust each other into God's hands, to learn to communicate with grace, and to help your conversations go forward in a way that does good and does not harm. May the Lord give wisdom to moderate and guard what enters the home through screens and to keep your household in purity and peace.
Continue to trust the Lord who is faithful. Keep praying, keep walking in repentance and holiness yourself, keep sowing to the Spirit, and keep bringing your child up in the Word with patience and love. The Lord who restores and who keeps His promises is able to do what lasts forever. May He grant you wisdom, guard your hearts, and lead each of you into a true and lasting turning to Him. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who alone is the way of salvation.
God's design for marriage from the beginning is clear. He created marriage to be a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, where the two become one flesh and where those whom God has joined together no one should separate. It is meant to be complementary, where two become complete in one union. Because of the hardness of human hearts, provision was made under the law for divorce, but Jesus went back to the original ideal and taught strongly that marriage is a lifetime commitment. He taught that sexual immorality violates that union, and that to break the covenant and join oneself to another is to commit adultery. This is not a small matter. The Scriptures warn plainly that those who practice sexual immorality and live in unrepentant adultery will not inherit the kingdom of God, that outside are those who love and practice falsehood, that the deeds of the flesh are evident, and that God is not mocked, for whatever a person sows, that he will also reap. To sow to the flesh reaps destruction, to sow to the Spirit reaps life. For this reason it is wise and necessary to ask for grace to turn away completely from social media and dating pursuits while still married, and to keep a clear boundary that honors the covenant.
The hope in this painful situation is repentance. From John the Baptist in the wilderness to Jesus Himself and to His letters to the churches, the call is the same, to repent for the forgiveness of sins, to confess sin and turn from it. David when he sinned with Bathsheba understood that his sin was first against God, and true conversion is shown by a change of heart and life and restoration. Jesus said He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and it is His kindness to convict the heart through the Holy Spirit. The image you prayed, of hedging a way with thorns so that a person cannot pursue lovers, is a picture from Scripture of God's loving restraint. He can block a destructive path so that the one who has wandered comes to her senses, as the prodigal did, and sees that she has sinned against God and against others and returns home. He can turn the disobedient to the wisdom and attitude of the just, turning hearts back to affection and submission. He does this in many ways, through the witness of other believers, through kindness, through truth spoken in love, and through seeking the one who is lost to bring them from death to life. God desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, and the gospel calls all people everywhere to repent and believe.
So we join you in praying that the Holy Spirit would bring deep conviction, that thorns would hedge any path toward unfaithfulness and make it unfruitful, that deception would be exposed and discernment given, and that there would be a radical return to first love for Jesus Christ. We pray that your wife would come to her senses, acknowledge sin, and turn to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing, and that she would stop sinning so that nothing worse would come upon her. We pray that God would overrule the influence of the world, subdue the flesh, and restrain the work of the enemy. We pray for your son, that he would be kept from evil and from the evil one, kept from temptation and deception and from every influence that would lead him astray, and kept from fear and lies. We pray for you, for help to hold your tongue when needed, to hold nothing against each other but to entrust each other into God's hands, to learn to communicate with grace, and to help your conversations go forward in a way that does good and does not harm. May the Lord give wisdom to moderate and guard what enters the home through screens and to keep your household in purity and peace.
Continue to trust the Lord who is faithful. Keep praying, keep walking in repentance and holiness yourself, keep sowing to the Spirit, and keep bringing your child up in the Word with patience and love. The Lord who restores and who keeps His promises is able to do what lasts forever. May He grant you wisdom, guard your hearts, and lead each of you into a true and lasting turning to Him. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who alone is the way of salvation.
