AN EXPECTED END

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."  Jeremiah 29:11  Many of us that are Christians know this verse.  We may even have it written on a plague or a bookmark and possibly have committed it to memory.  But, do we really believe that God has a plan for our life and the lives of those we love all the way to the end?

I find that in my life it is sometimes easier to believe that He has a great plan for me personally than it is to trust Him to take care of my grown children and their families.  When it comes to my children, I want to fix everything and solve the problems for them.  You might think that once your children are grown, married and on their own a mother could stop worrying because she knows that there is nothing she can do about their problems.  Anyone reading this that has grown children knows that that is not the way it works.  Particularly for those of us that are type A personalities that want to plan, organize, and fix everything. :-)

I have struggled with the concept of allowing God to work in my children's lives ever since they left home in 1998.  This is particularly strange since I spent their growing up years teaching them that they were to leave home, depend on God and become independent adults.  Once my teaching became reality I struggled with the knowledge that I couldn't know what they were doing every hour of the day.  If any other mother had told me that she wanted to talk to her children daily to find out what they were doing and make sure that their decisions were mature & godly, I would have informed her that she needed to learn to let go!  And that would have been correct.  I have found it is much easier to give good advice than to apply it personally. :-)

God gives us many promises in scripture that He will guide us and take care of us if we will look to Him for direction.  When our children have flown the nest, it is time for us to trust in those promises.  It is also up to us to remember that people always learn better when they have to struggle and learn to overcome with God's help.  When my children were small I never pampered them when they fell and got hurt.  If it wasn't serious, I would tell them to hop up and get moving they would be fine.  It was important that they learned to become tough to life's bumps and bruises.  I wanted them to understand that life was hard at times and we had to learn to trust the Lord to help us overcome and give us the strength to  focus on the blessings of God not the trials and testings.

As parents, it is not our job to solve every problem for them and make the way easy.  It is our job to pray, encourage and be there when they ask for advice.  They will never become all that God wants them to be if we jump in with money or physical help to solve every problem in life.  Just as we did when they were little, we must learn to sit back and trust the Lord to show them the answers.  If we as parents cannot learn to wait on God's perfect timing, how can we teach our children to trust in Him who has promised that He has an expected end for each of us? 

Lord help me to learn to put into practice the words of Isaiah 40:31 "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles: they shall run and not be weary: and they shall walk and not faint."  Oh that each of us as parents would learn to wait on God's perfect timing to teach us and our children the lessons that we need to learn that we might reach the goals that God has for us.