Let Them Go, Bend the Knee, and Prepare

A phrase I have been using much these days is “let them go.”

A word I have been using much these days is “enabler.”

It is natural and somewhat a duty to enable and cling to our kids and loved ones.  A good parent doesn’t put all their child’s stumbles and fumbles out there for laughter and scrutiny.  A good parent seeks to help their child succeed.  But, there is a line.  There is a time and there are reasons to let a child go.

After all, what child, when older, wants to go on a bike ride with peers with training wheels still and with Mom running alongside steadying the bike and coaching.  Let them go!!

And coming to riding alone, fast, and over rough terrain takes practice and experience.  And experience almost always involves crashes with skinned elbows, scraped knees, wounded emotions, and once in awhile a broken bone.  Yet, a good parent must at some point “let them go!”

What about when they are middlers and have homework?  What about when they are middlers and have not completed their chores and father is coming home and will not be happy?  What about when they are middlers and staying up too late when they have to rise early to make the school bus?  Let them go!!  That is, let them suffer the consequences of their actions.  The homework not done or poorly done, father angry, and they missing school will bring on trouble – all hard to watch, but they will also learn.  Let them grow up.

Don’t enable their wrong priorities, slothfulness, or disobedience.  They will suffer for a season but they will also be pushed to grow up.  Let them go!  If they don’t want to work – they don’t eat.  If they don’t have gas money – they stay home.

And as adults.  Let them go!  They don’t get their taxes paid – let the consequences teach them.  They wrongly spend money so they can’t make a payment – let them go!  Pain, loss, and  shame might beset them, but they will mature.

What did God tell Hosea to do with his willful wife, Gomer?  Let her go!  What did the father of the discontented son do when asked for his cut of the inheritance?  He let him go!  And what happened in both stories?  They came back repentant, submissive, and restored.

What happened in-between?  They hit a wall!  They suffered!  They dragged the family name down!  They wasted time and money!  Their life fell apart!  But don’t intervene!  Let God work and He will!

What happened to Jonah who didn’t want to obey but go his own way?  God let him go!  And God worked to turned the wayward child.

We sing about God being a “good, good Father” thinking that such always means sunshine and lollipops.  And at times those are true, but so is discipline, labor, and submission.  Enabling is really crippling.  Enabling is hindering a child from learning, developing, and maturing.  Don’t enable.  Let them go!

Then, you bend the knee.  Keep them before the Lord.  Have others join you.  You draw near to God knowing that God will reciprocate (James 4:8).  The prodigal’s father was apparently daily, if not many times daily, looking down the road, anticipating, for it says that when the boy was a long ways off the father ran to meet him.

And prepare!  What happened with Gomer and the prodigal?  God brought them to an end and they came home!  To Hosea, God said to allure her, to date her, and to speak comfort to her.  He told Hosea to get ready.  And the prodigal’s father?  He had a ring, a robe, and hugs ready.  He prepared for the return!

So, let them go, bend the knee, and prepare for we have a good, good Father!