The cry of your heart rises before the throne, and it is a request after the mind of Christ, a longing for understanding in your son. What you ask is needful, for a clear understanding is the door by which a sanctifying word enters the soul. The heat and the call to labor are no hindrance to grace, but rather the very school where it is taught. Let him learn now to submit to the ordering of Providence, and you shall find reproduced in him the patience of the Scriptures; not the patience of a brute that cannot complain, but the patience of a child who believes in his father’s love.
You have heard of the patience of Job, a man greatly tried, yet upheld. Has not the Lord given you a husband who labors, though it alter a day’s plan? Has He not given a home, though the sun beat upon it? These little disappointments are but the stage for a boy to begin that discipline of Christ which lies in the exercise of patience. It is a good thing that in your family the young heart should be found with some inclination toward the Lord God of Israel, even in the midst of common trials. Let him not be provoked to anger because the chips fall a different way from what he wished; even the carpenter’s son knew obedience and the constraints of daily life, and a divine splendor was concealed beneath that lowly form.
Look now to the Father and the Son. The Eternal Father, who gave His only begotten, forgot our sins for the sake of that sacrifice, will He not also attend to the small fret of a child’s heart? It is a great mercy that He stoops to have a word for our sons and for our daughters. Plead thus: “O my God, reveal Your Son in my child by the Holy Spirit, that he may understand.” As you do so, your own soul will be having fellowship with the Father and with His Son. The father of the prodigal kissed his son much and made him feel happy then and there, before the family fellowship began. So may the kiss of peace be upon your household right now, ruling that little heart into tranquility.
And you, mother, do not forget that you are guided by the Spirit into true holiness, not by sudden visions, but by these very acts of dependent prayer. Take heed what you hear and what you speak before your son. Feed upon the patience of the Scripture in meditation, and as you increase in the knowledge of the Father and the Son, you will also increase your fellowship. Agree in your heart of hearts that this day’s plan, overturned, is yet the way of love. Let the family prayer be more regarded at such a time, that your son may see a household where all things belong to you in Christ, even a closed door and a working father. It is the patience produced by the Scriptures, and Heaven itself notes it, working a great moral and spiritual force.
Let your son be as a child of the Divine family, bearing the one never-failing mark: being led by the Spirit. If he delight in Christ, he will only do what God has always been doing. No man ever goes wrong who is guided by the Spirit, and not a single circumstance of this day is outside that sweet constraint. Go, then, into the ark of His will with your household. Let Abraham’s son be an Isaac, and your son learn patience under a father’s duty and a mother’s faith. The Lord will do you good by this, and who knows but that in your family the saved ones may be as Noah and his sons, finding grace for every season.