Entrusted to the Father

Whether we are parenting our own children or interacting with neighbors, coworkers, or friends, we can't make anyone believe.

Faith is not something we can force, manufacture, or argue into someone else's heart. No amount of pressure, perfect logic, or constant reminding can create genuine conviction.

Rather, our calling is much simpler and much more humbling: we witness.

We witness with our words telling honestly what we have seen and heard, what God has done in our own lives, how He has met us, kept us, and changed us.

And we witness with our lives not in perfection, but in consistency, in repentance, in love, in the quiet way we choose grace when no one would blame us for choosing bitterness.

And then, we pray. Because we recognize the limits of both our words and our lives.

We pray because only the Holy Spirit can open eyes that are blind and soften hearts that are hard, including the hearts of the children we love most.

Our God, who sent Paul to the Gentiles — to people far off, skeptical, indifferent, and even hostile — sends us with the very same instruction: Go and witness, so that they may have a reason to believe.

He does not send us to convert, to control outcomes, or to carry the weight of another person's soul. He sends us to be faithful witnesses.

Our job is to faithfully scatter the seed; His job is to give the growth, in His time and in His way.

And after we have spoken, lived, and prayed, we do the hardest and most hopeful thing of all: we entrust them to our Father.

We entrust them to the Father who loves them far more perfectly, patiently, and persistently than we ever could.