What Your Child’s Hatred Teaches You About God’s Love

When researching and interviewing for my upcoming book, When Christian Parents Hurt (it's been given an August 2027 publication date), I was struck by the resilience and love so many parents displayed toward adult children who were all but terrorizing them. That taught me something profound about God's love. This is the wonder of life in Christ: even an adult child's hatred can teach us about the depths of God's love.

Joanna prayed for her son in utero. She listened to worship music while pregnant and nursing. She dedicated her little boy at the front of the church when he was three months old. He attended weekly Sunday School, annual Vacation Bible Schools, and youth retreats. She discussed the Bible with him and did everything she could think of to “raise him up in the way he should go.”

But as soon as her boy hit college, he humiliated her with the way he treated young women, flunked his classes, and even got into minor scrapes with the law. As angry as Joanna was at her son, she admitted to her pastor that she was also angry at…God.

“Where was He?” she wanted to know. And why wasn’t God answering her prayers, offered with faith, and interspersed with fasting?

The last chapter was about not letting your child fracture your marriage; in this chapter, I want to ensure that you draw nearer to God rather than pull away in the midst of your parental pain.

What Does God Owe Us?

I’ve met parents whose frustration with God stems from an unacknowledged “deal.” Somewhere, they picked up the notion that if they did “everything right,” or at least as earnestly as they could, God would ensure that their children would turn out great. Having felt they accomplished their part, they wonder why God hasn’t held up His end of the bargain. This deal is rooted in the notion that God owes us something. It’s usually not vocalized in that fashion, but that’s what’s behind the frustration.

This may sound like a hard truth at first, but please, stay with me. The anger we feel toward God stems from the notion that God owes us more than He has already given us. The truth is, God doesn’t owe us anything. Our own salvation is a gift of unparalleled value (1 John 3:1). If God did nothing else for us, He has already done more than we could expect or repay. The gift of forgiveness and eternal life is incalculable. The presence of the Holy Spirit is no mere trinket.