How Do I Represent Christ to My Child Who Won’t Listen to Truth?

In my ministry at Harvest USA, I have the privilege of helping parents build a closer relationship with their son or daughter who has adopted a gay or transgender identity. But this often comes with a lot of challenges, especially if their child has no desire to talk about their decisions and is bent on pursuing their own way, when the child is turning their back on the values that they were raised on and turning towards beliefs and people that will encourage them to embrace a whole new way of life. Parents often feel at a loss about how to lead their child to Christ when all of their efforts to speak truth are met with resistance.

If you can identify with this experience, you may be asking yourself, how can you possibly have a voice in your son or daughter’s life when you can’t even talk about these issues with them, let alone bring up Scripture or other passages for them to mull over? You may be wondering, what is your role in all this?

Now, although this can be a very painful place to be, I want to encourage you with a hopeful word from Scripture that gives us a way forward and shows how you can make an impact on your son or daughter’s life. 1 John 4:10-12 says this: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

This is familiar gospel language to most of us, but consider verse 12 again: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” What this means is God wants to use you as a means for your son or daughter to see him. Have you ever considered that the way you love others, and ultimately love your child, is one of the primary ways your son or daughter may see God?

2 Corinthians likewise puts it this way: “We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” Ambassador is a hope-filled title for parents, but consider what this means. Though an ambassador speaks on behalf of someone else, it is their entire being that is meant to communicate what is important. Their attitude, demeanor, and the ways they relate to others all point towards who they represent. In the same way, the biggest impact you can make in your child’s life is not in what you say. It is in the way you show love for them.

My challenge to you today is to consider the kind of ambassador of Christ you are towards your child. What does the way you relate, speak, and act towards your son or daughter show about the kind of God that you worship and point towards? We need to take time to examine our hearts and be willing for God to reveal areas in us that he wants to change, that we might represent him in a more accurate way. This also means that you have to think a little outside of the box on how you can practically demonstrate the love of Christ to your child, in more ways than just simply speaking truth to them. I encourage you to read my blog for more practical suggestions of how you can go about this.

Examining these areas may be very challenging for you to consider, but I want to encourage you that God is using this situation to draw you closer to himself, to look increasingly more like Jesus. If you allow him to do this transformation in you, by God’s grace, your child may see the good fruit that is produced and come to know the love of God more clearly for them.