Your father is weary, and you are weary with him. Yet in this weariness there is a cry that reaches the ear of the Lord. It is no small thing to sit and feed a man who will not eat unless you are there. You are, in a measure, doing for him what our Lord does for us, coming close when we have no appetite for the bread of heaven, and gently putting it to our lips. Do not think that this labor is unnoticed in the courts above. The living Father sees you, and He knows what it is to care for the feeble.
Listen: the very fact that you are troubled for him and for yourself shows there is life in you both. The dead cannot eat, and the dead do not hunger. But here is your father, depressed and refusing food, yet he will take it from your hand. That is a kind of hunger, a flicker of need that you are meeting. And in the same way, the soul that has no strength to feed on Christ by itself may yet be fed through the hands of another. You are being a home missionary to him, even as our Lord ministered to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. You could not do everything, but you do what you can. That is all any of us can do, and God will bless it.
But while you pour out your strength for him, do not forget that you have a Father who has not forgotten you. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not a distant tyrant, but One who blends authority with affection, origination with relationship. You are not an orphan. He has said, "I will not leave you orphans; I will come unto you." And He comes as a Father. When you are spent and do not know what else to do, flee to Him. There is hope in God for you, for both of you. Do not look for hope in yourself, you will find none. The prodigal had no goodness of his own, but he had a father full of mercy. So it is here: "There is no hope for you in yourself, but there is hope for you in your Father."
You ask what else to do but be there for him. I answer: keep doing it, but let your doing flow from a soul that eats the flesh of Christ. You must feed on Him if you are to sustain another. The eating of the sacrifice is not to give life, for no dead man can eat, it is to sustain the life that is already there. Come to Jesus, hungry as you are, and take Him into yourself. He is the bread that came down from heaven. As you eat, you will live by Him, and you will have strength for the day. This is not about working harder or finding a new plan; it is about receiving. Even the mightiest must become a receiver, as the poorest beggar. So, in this hard hour, make yourself a receiver of grace. Look unto Him and live.
Do not let your present trouble drive God into the shadows. See Him as your Father, your Father through Christ. If you have trusted Jesus, then Christ’s Father is your Father, Christ’s God is your God. You are a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. And if He is your Father, will you not trust Him? As a child trusts a parent for what it needs, so may you trust your heavenly Father. He knows what you require today, and what your father requires, and what the unknown future holds. Leave it all with Him.
And what of your father’s soul? I do not know his state before God, but I know this: the goodness that may not be in him, the Father has. If he is all sin, yet God is all mercy. There is hope in God for him. Whisper to him of Christ, if his heart can bear it. Even if he cannot speak, you may pray beside his bed. The Lord can make the crumb of promise so sweet that the eater will whisper, "I think I am a child after all." Pray that he may taste and see that the Lord is good.
For yourself, remember that your acceptance before God is not because you are strong or because you succeed in this trial. You are accepted in the Beloved. As Christ is infinitely acceptable to the Father, so you are, if you are in Him. This is your rest. When you cannot do more, when your own heart is faint, lie back upon that acceptance. Your very person is precious to God, He delights in you individually.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon you, that you should be called a child of God. Let that carry you through. Do not look so hard at the waves that you forget the face of your Father. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.