Katy Perry's Mom: Joy Will Bring Your Prodigal Home

This generation is in the middle of a cultural Armageddon. Teenagers and young adults are constantly being assaulted with immoral and often perverted messages from movies, television, music, and the Internet. On a simple trip to the mall, girls are presented with life-sized photos of partially undressed men in the most popular department stores. Our boys are fed a constant diet of racy commercials and violent, sexually explicit video games.

Satan’s visual attack on our youth is relentless, and parents and grandparents must take to their prayer closet and walk in their God-given authority.

If not, the enemy is waiting to devour a generation. Consider this: correctional facilities are one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. The number of jail inmates increased more than 9 percent since 2000 and is expected to rise another 7.5 percent by 2016.1Research has shown time and again that young men raised without fathers make up the majority of the prison population. Clearly there is a cry for men and women who will stand in the gap for this generation. Children can’t be left to raise themselves. Most people know this intuitively. Mothers, do you remember the sense of responsibility that dawned on you the moment you knew you were expecting your first child? All of a sudden, life no longer revolved around you. Now you were making decisions for another human being. You wondered, “Will it be bad for the baby if I drink alcohol or caffeine, take prescription drugs, or exercise too much or too little?” The unborn child growing daily in your womb suddenly took precedence above everything else in your life. You started a whole new era in your walk with God: praying for your unborn baby and his future.That burden to nurture and protect your children and guide them spiritually does not change as they age. But when our children become adults, they must make their own decisions about whether they are going to follow God. It is not up to us. The Lord did not create us to play the role of the Holy Spirit in our children’s lives or anyone else’s.

We Christians are not the Holy Ghost Junior.

We have to rest in the fact that we trained our children up in the way they should go, and even if they stray, they will return (Proverbs 22:6).Our children will explore the world on their own, make their own choices, and sometimes, unfortunately, make mistakes like we did at their age. That is one of the ways we learn how to live life—by experiencing its pitfalls. Of course, the Lord would rather have us take the easier way and renew our minds with His Word and make decisions that honor Him. But when we choose not to take that road, God will use peoples’ prayers and non-judgmental attitude to get through to us.It may seem impossible to believe that now, especially if your children are barely speaking to you, but in time they will realize that you were right about some things. It’s like a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill: “When I was sixteen, I thought my parents knew nothing. When I was twenty-one, I was shocked to discover how much they picked up in five years.” How many of us once thought the same thing? With each passing year we discover that our parents had a lot more wisdom than we gave them credit for. Our children will do the same. They may get angry with you as teenagers or young adults, but eventually they will begin to think that maybe you’re right and they’re wrong. Just give them time.

Guard Your Relationship

So what do you do when you see your teenage child veering off course? Sit there and let it happen?

It can often feel like the wind was knocked out of you when a child—the very one you prayed for and nurtured for so many years—seems to be heading in the wrong direction.

Not only do you not feel like praying, but you may also want to get in the child’s face and give him a piece of your mind.That is the worst thing you can do when the devil is making a play for their souls. When children stray from what they have been taught, we can’t shut them out. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, if you don’t engage your children and spend time with them, they will look elsewhere for attention.Just as they needed you to listen to them when they were young, they need you to listen to them now. The six years between the ages of twelve and eighteen are critical times for you to always be ready to hear them, no matter what they want to talk about.The exciting part is that they are confident enough to talk to you.

You want to be the one your child feels safest talking with so you can know how to pray.

That doesn’t change as your children age. Lending a nonjudgmental ear, one that is there to listen and not comment, is the most effective tool you will have in drawing your child back to a closer relationship with you and Him. Some of what they tell you may be hard to hear. Take it to your prayer closet and leave it there. Even if you are alarmed by what your child tells you, one of the worst things you can do is betray that confidence by telling your friends. Trust those secrets to the heart of God.Parents (and adults who are called to minister to young people) must create an environment that is loving, nurturing, and safe so their children will feel free to communicate with them. This may feel awkward to you if you were raised in an environment where your parents rarely talked with you. But making time to listen to your children when they need to talk and giving them your undivided attention will bring eternal rewards.

The love of God flowing through you is what will draw your children back to God.

That is why you have to keep your relationship intact, no matter what your children are doing or how they are behaving. It is easy to get angry when your children are rebelling; it often takes great patience to not shut them off after you have expressed your opinion about how you think they should live. They are old enough to think for themselves. It is time to let them.

Get angry at the devil; he's your problem.

You are not fighting flesh and blood but powers and principalities. Once you see it as spiritual warfare, it is a lot easier to be objective about it.Your position now is to stand before God and worship Him. Many times children want to listen to their parents because they know they have wisdom that can help them. But when that parent constantly condemns, judges, or crushes the child’s spirit, he will go to someone else—anyone who will have an ear open to hear his heart. Rather than speaking words that destroy, speak words that encourage. You can pray alone but also remember that your prayers with your mate or another strong believer will put ten thousand devils to flight. You’re in a spiritual battle and you must fight for your child with superior firepower—which is God’s plan of rejoicing, praising, and declaring His Word.