Guardrails, Grace, and the Love of Christ, My 2 Cents.

Last evening, my wife and I had a wonderful time with a couple who are dear friends of ours. As we talked about our past and present lives, our conversation eventually turned toward some of the legalistic principles we had lived by in the past, principles we sincerely believed were expressions of our Christian faith and our love for Christ.

But as we reflected on our lives, we began to recognize something uncomfortable. Sometimes what we called Christian values and protection was actually being driven by fear. We thought we were protecting our faith, protecting our children, and doing what was necessary to preserve our Christian identity. But looking back, perhaps some of the guardrails we created were not necessarily guardrails God asked us to create.

Let me share a little about my own life. I was born and raised in a Hindu family, with many generations of commercial shrimp fishermen on my father’s side. I met my wife when we were both teenagers, and we eventually got married as young adults. Because ours was an inter religious marriage, it was completely unacceptable to my family. I had to leave my home, but my wife’s family accepted me as their own son.

Then, when I was about 25 years old, the Lord, in His incredible grace, opened my heart to receive the gift of salvation through Christ. That changed the direction of my life, and I never looked back.

As we continued our life and walk with Christ, my wife and I made a deliberate decision to stay away from my side of the family. At the time, we genuinely believed we were doing the right thing. We thought that if we isolated ourselves and our children from influences that did not share our faith, we could somehow protect their Christian beliefs.

Looking back now, I believe much of that decision was driven by fear.

We thought, “If we keep our children away from these influences, they will remain strong in Christ.”

But it did not produce the fruit we expected. In the process, we missed a golden opportunity to share the love of Christ with my parents and much of my family. We also learned something very difficult, isolating our children from people who do not share our faith does not guarantee that they will grow up to become men of God.

As I have shared in previous podcasts, both of my sons are now adults, walking through their own journeys in life, with their own struggles and decisions. As parents, we sometimes wish we could protect our children from every wrong influence, every wrong relationship, and every wrong decision.

But I want to be very clear here. I am not saying that we should throw our children into every ungodly environment and simply take the risk. That is not wisdom either. There are environments, relationships, and influences that can be destructive, and as parents, we have a God given responsibility to protect our children.

The real question is, “are we making those decisions through the wisdom and leading of the Holy Spirit, or are we making them primarily out of fear?”

There is a difference between wise protection and fear driven isolation.

As parents, we need to know in His Spirit which relationships should be encouraged, which ones require boundaries, and which ones we may need to walk away from. But those decisions should ultimately be driven by Christ’s love and His wisdom, not simply by our fear of what might happen.

We cannot create a Christian bubble around our children and assume that the bubble itself will produce faith. At some point, our children must develop their own relationship with Christ. They need convictions that become rooted in their own hearts, not simply rules that were enforced by their parents.

And this is where I believe being part of the body of Christ becomes incredibly important.

When our children grow up within a genuine, Christ centered body of believers, they have an opportunity to see Christianity lived out beyond their own parents. They see brothers and sisters walking through suffering, marriage, parenting, forgiveness, failure, repentance, generosity, service, and faithfulness. They begin to understand that following Christ is not merely a collection of rules about what they can and cannot do. It is a life surrendered to Him.

Living and being part of the body of Christ can help produce everlasting convictions in our hearts and in the hearts of our children, convictions that can remain even when they leave our homes and begin making their own decisions.

Am I saying this guarantees that our children will always walk with Christ? Absolutely not.

Our children will make their own choices. They may struggle. They may wander. They may resist what we taught them. Ultimately, their relationship with God has to become their own.

But perhaps this is one of the best opportunities we can give them, a home centered on Christ, parents who genuinely live what they believe, God’s Word as the foundation, the Holy Spirit as our guide, and a body of believers around them where they can actually witness the life of Christ being lived.

Jesus Himself did not compromise holiness, but He was never afraid to love people who were far from God. He did not participate in their sin, but He entered their world with truth, grace, compassion, and love.

And I think this is where we sometimes misunderstand Christ’s love.

Christian love does not mean approving everything someone does. It does not mean eliminating every boundary. And it certainly does not mean recklessly exposing our children to harmful influences.

But neither does it mean building walls around ourselves and calling those walls faith.

Sometimes God calls us to establish a boundary, and sometimes God calls us to build a bridge. The challenge is having enough discernment to know the difference.

Looking back, I wish I had understood this earlier. I wish I had spent more time building relationships with my parents and family while maintaining my convictions, rather than believing that distance alone would somehow protect the faith of my children.

Because faith cannot ultimately be transferred through isolation.

Our children need to see Christ in us. They need to see us love people who disagree with us. They need to see us forgive. They need to see us stand for truth without becoming harsh. They need to see us establish boundaries without hatred and extend grace without compromising our convictions.

And they need the body of Christ, a community where faith is not simply preached on Sunday but lived throughout the week.

My wife and I have learned some of these lessons the hard way. We cannot control the outcome of our children’s lives. We cannot build enough guardrails to guarantee their choices. And we cannot produce faith in their hearts simply by keeping them away from everything we consider dangerous.

What we can do is give them the strongest foundation we know, Christ at the center of our home, God’s Word as our standard, the Holy Spirit as our guide, and the body of Christ around them.

Then we have to trust God with what we cannot control.

Maybe this is one of the differences between fear driven Christianity and faith driven Christianity. Fear says, “I must control the environment so nothing goes wrong.” Faith says, I will obey God, seek His wisdom, follow His Spirit, love people, establish boundaries when necessary, and trust Him with what I cannot control. ”

Our children are ultimately God’s children before they are ours. We are stewards. We can teach them, guide them, protect them, pray for them, and model Christ before them, but we cannot make their decisions for them.

Perhaps one of the greatest opportunities we can give our children is not a perfectly controlled environment, but a genuine faith they have seen lived out at home, within the body of Christ, and in the way we love the people God places in our lives.

There are no guarantees.

But I believe it gives them a strong foundation upon which everlasting convictions can be formed, convictions that can draw them back to Christ even when life takes them through difficult seasons.

And maybe that is what my wife and I are still learning about Christ’s love. Our faith should not cause us to love people less. As we grow deeper in Christ, His love should teach us how to love people better, with truth, wisdom, discernment, grace, and without fear.

That’s my 2 cents. Love you all in our Lord’s love.