62. Disappointed With Your Adult Kids?

Ajouté : 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Did you know that no matter what you've been through in life, how traumatic, no matter the level of crisis or tragedy, betrayal, injustice, you are not a victim if you choose not to be one. I want to talk today about a victim mentality that we're all tempted at times to struggle with.

[00:00:34]Now, you can't have lived very long and not gone through some level of one of those things. Abuse, trauma, betrayal, definitely injustice.

[00:00:45]And the temptation is always there to take on the identity of a victim. Now, in saying that, I'm not saying that someone hasn't truly been a victim of a crime or a victim of abuse.

[00:01:01]If you have been, you have been. Like, no one can tell you otherwise.

[00:01:06]But what you do with what you've been through determines if you are truly in the sense of identity a victim or not.

[00:01:16]Of course, the very real enemy of our souls, the accuser, Satan, would love for us to be stuck under the circumstances that caused us to be victimized and never get free from the victim role, the victim mentality, and the identity as a victim. Again, in saying that, I think that most people that truly are a victim of someone else or a situation that they had no control over, those people have their greatest area of purpose and impact in the area that they were victimized in. So, I'm not saying to ignore the fact that you've been through something horrific.

[00:02:15]I'm saying let's see if we can get the the the Lord's perspective on who you are as someone who has been through that. And I think that we find the Lord's perspective in a parable, a story that Jesus told in Luke 15. And that is in the Passion translation. It's called the loving father, but it's typically known as the prodigal son. So, I want to read this passage to you and then I want to give you a perspective on it that maybe you've never heard before.

[00:02:50]Now, some of us have been through things with our our kids or family members that have been so difficult that we're tempted to believe that we're a victim even of someone that we love, someone that made a choice um in a different direction that hurt us and disappointed us so profoundly that we have allowed allowed resentment even in that relationship to come in because of that. And if that's you, then obviously the prodigal story can relate to you in a very specific way. But if not, it gives us insight into the heart of our father and our role as the older brother. So here we go. Luke 15:1 Jesus said, "Once there was a father with two sons. The younger son came to his father and said, "Father, don't you think it's time to give me my share of your estate?" So, the father went ahead and distributed between the two sons their inheritance. Shortly afterward, the younger son packed up all his belongings and traveled off to see the world. He journeyed off to a faroff land where he soon wasted all he was given in a binge of extravagant and reckless living. With everything spent and nothing left, he grew hungry because there was a severe famine in that land. So he begged a farmer in that country to hire him. The farmer hired him and sent him out to feed the pigs. The son was so famished she was willing even to eat the slop given to the pigs because no one would feed him a thing. Humiliated, the son finally realized what he was doing. And he thought, "There are many workers at my father's house who have all the food they want with plenty to spare. They lack nothing. Why am I here dying of hunger, feeding these pigs and eating their slop? I want to go back home to my father's house. And I'll say to him, "Father, I was wrong. I've sinned against you. I'll never again be worthy to be called your son. Please, father, just treat me like one of your employees." So the young son set off for home. From a long distance away, his father saw him coming, dressed as a beggar, and great compassion swelled up in his heart for his son who was returning home. The father raced out to meet him, swept him up in his arms, hugged him dearly, and kissed him over and over with tender love. Then the son said, "Father, I was wrong. I've sinned against you. I could never deserve to be called your son. Just let me be." The father interrupted and said, "Son, you're home now." Turning to his servants, the father said, "Quick, bring me the best robe, my very own robe, and I will place it on his shoulders. Bring the ring, the seal of sunship, and I will put it on his finger. And bring out the best shoes you can find for my son.

[00:05:42]Let's prepare a great feast and celebrate, for my beloved son was once dead, but now he's alive. Once he was lost, but now he is found. And everyone celebrated with overflowing joy. Now the older brother was out working in the field when his younger brother returned.

[00:05:59]And as he approached the house, he heard the music of the celebration and dancing. He called over one of the servants and asked, "What's going on?"

[00:06:06]The servant replied, "It's your younger brother. He's returned home and your father's throwing a party to celebrate his homecoming." The older son became angry and refused to go in and celebrate. So his father came out and pleaded with him, "Come and enjoy the feast with us." The son said, "Father, listen. How many years have I worked like a slave for you, performing every duty you've asked as a faithful son? And I've never once disobeyed you. But you've never thrown a party for me because of my faithfulness. Never once have you ever given me a goat that I could feast on and celebrate with my friends as this son of yours is doing now. Look at him. He comes back after wasting your wealth on prostitutes and reckless living. And here you are throwing a great feast to celebrate for him. The father said, "My son, you are always with me by my side. Everything I have is yours to enjoy. It's only right to rejoice and celebrate like this because your brother was once dead and gone, but now he is alive and back with us again. He was lost, but now he is found."

[00:07:10]So, um, wow, there's so much in that story, all the obvious things that we can learn from it, but I want to point out some things that maybe you've never thought of before. And I want to um give this as a backdrop. I remember um a conversation I had with the Lord years ago about our children and is seeing them make their own choices in life as adults and you know trying to watch and not be afraid and certainly not be controlling but just supportive in their process and their journey. And I asked the Lord, I was feeling guilty. I was like, "How do I process the decisions that they make? Some I would agree with, some I wouldn't agree with." And the Lord just spoke so clearly to my heart from this passage.

[00:08:06]First of all, he said, "You need to understand that none of my children are born as a blank slate.

[00:08:18]Every single one of you have a spirit that I breathed that's unique into every single body that you were born into.

[00:08:30]And only I knew what that spirit, what each of you as human beings would need to experience and go through in your process ultimately with me, whether someone realizes they're in a process with God or not, they are. Every single one of you, I chose and I put you into the body and into the circumstance, into the city, the nation, the family, for good or bad. Every single one of you, because I alone knew the process it would take for each of you to have the test and the opportunities that each of you have.

[00:09:17]And I am giving you the bestcase scenario within the context of free will and sin in the earth. I'm giving you the best case scenario for you to choose me for all of eternity.

[00:09:34]And he said, "And I knew that you would love your daughters and your son who we adopted the best way that they needed to be loved." Not perfectly. He knew I would never love them perfectly in order for them to have the test and the process that they need.

[00:10:00]And wow, that took so much weight off of me as a as a parent. I wish I had understood that when they were young, but as they have become adults, it's helped me not overanalyze their childhood, things I could have done differently, things that we wish we' done more of or less of, choices that we made that affected them.

[00:10:26]And it it caused me to go, "Oh, okay."

[00:10:28]Like in general, God knew that I would know with his help how to love each one of them in a way that represents his love. Unconditional, extravagant, supportive, no fear, no panic, just love.

[00:10:49]The kind of love that each one of them would need through their process with him.

[00:10:56]and it simplified my role and my understanding of my role in my adult children's lives and my son-in-law and daughter-in-law. And I try to remember that because what happens is as your kids grow, maybe you have young kids right now, maybe your kids are older like mine are, but as they grow, you can judge their decisions, which is a problem in and of itself. judge their decisions and oversimplify life and go, "Well, I told them what they needed to know. I gave them what they need. They went their own way. They made this decision." You know, and we try to reason somewhere between feeling completely responsible and totally guilty. If they're going through a hard time, it's got to be all our fault. or disappointed because they didn't go the direction we wanted them to go in career in life, spouse choice or relationship with God, etc., relationship with a church. There's so many areas that we can judge others, especially our own family members in. And for years you spend as a mom especially and I think also as a dad you spend your your energy pouring into them and trying to raise them up in the way they should go and then you expect certain results by certain timetables, right? And that's just not life. So, I want to use some other truths that the Lord spoke to my heart through Luke 15 and the story of the prodigal um to encourage you. Yes, related to maybe what I just described with that parent adult child relationship, but even bigger than that, the whole idea of thinking of ourselves as a victim. So first of all, the Lord showed me in this parable that Jesus was telling us, first of all, we have the advantage that no one else in that story has. Obviously, it's not a true story, but it represents the truth. We have the advantage that we get to know this story. So, there's a reason God wanted to give us this insight through Jesus.

[00:13:24]there are there are truths about him and about ourselves that he wants us to learn through this. So simply by hearing the story we are being empowered for something and it's important also to know that in this story this parable we are not the father.

[00:13:48]We are not the father. The father is the father. So Jesus is telling a story and he is equating in my opinion the father of this story with our heavenly father.

[00:13:59]And so there's some things to be learned about our father through this story. Um number one, he was not a victim. So he's an adult.

[00:14:12]He has an inheritance for his sons. His son came to him impulsively in an immature way to say, "Give me my inheritance now." And evidently that was just so rude. Just like it would be rude now. Like I would never go to my living parents and say, "Hey, can you go ahead and give me what you're going to give me when you die?" You know, like it's just it's it's so so wrong on so many levels.

[00:14:43]And I I don't think that it surprised this father because it says he gave it to him, right? There was no like he begged him. He eventually wore him down and talked him into it. He convinced him why he would make investments with her.

[00:14:57]There was none of that. It was just simple. He asked for it. He gave it to him. And if our heavenly father is the father, then the equivalent of that, I believe, is that we're all the prodigal.

[00:15:10]We are all ones who have insisted on our own free will before we were ready. That is our inheritance. Our inheritance is freedom. It is for freedom that he set us free. It is the freedom to be out from under the burden of sin and the freedom to choose him for eternity.

[00:15:38]And here we have the father not being a victim of the younger son.

[00:15:45]It's not like he was just sitting home being a good dad and then all of a sudden the son was just gone one day.

[00:15:52]He had an active role in his child, his adult child's ability to go wayward. I mean, could the younger son really have swed his wild oats if he hadn't been given his inheritance that his father had worked hard for that was part of his destiny? Like, when you think of an inheritance for your kids, you're thinking, I want to set them up for a greater level of success. this was actually going to do the opposite for his son.

[00:16:23]But we're we're learning here that the father first of all has given all of us what he longed to give us all along in the garden that free choice way before we were ready. knowing that it would actually give us like the prodigal the best opportunity for the most authentic relationship in time with him.

[00:16:50]And you have a son here who takes prematurely what his father wanted to give him all along.

[00:16:58]Misuses it. Damages his own soul in the process.

[00:17:03]But it lands him in a place in the end of seeing his father and his relationship to his father rightly and him choosing after being tested.

[00:17:19]choosing of his own will to come back into relationship with his father. Now, we also learn that the father evidently wasn't freaking out. He was going about his normal way of life, but his heart was tuned and ready and expectant even for the results that ended up happening.

[00:17:46]Because it says that in in the New King James version that he waited at the end of the road and while he was yet a long way off, the father saw him and ran towards him. This is the heart of our father. So because we know this story, we have the opportunity to decide who we want to be in this story. We can all relate to the prodigal, right? None of us have made perfect decisions. We've used our free will wrongly. And hopefully you're one who has surrendered that free will back to the father and said, "Actually, I'd rather do this your way. I'd rather do this in relationship with you." And so then we're left with the father or the older brother.

[00:18:34]And many of us end up choosing the route of the older brother where we are in relationship with the father but in this earning performance kind of of striving role. And in that it causes us to judge others who are lost and a long way off whether they're related to us or not. We judge them from a place of performance because we're judging even ourselves from a place of performance. So here this poor guy, the older brother is just been what he thinks as slaving away for his father. But yet he was living in the most privileged position which is in relationship with the father in his house.

[00:19:22]And he wasn't a slave. he still had his inheritance and the opportunity to stay in a relationship with his father. Sorry to interrupt this episode. I just wanted to quickly say that we love giving you guys this content for free. With that in mind, I'd like to remind you that it really helps us out if you like, subscribe, and comment. We want to thank you for your continued generous donations. [music] It's out of the overflow of what you give that you not only support the seven mountain message that awakens followers of Jesus to their purpose, but you also support important global kingdom projects. You can go to restore.org to learn about those projects, to donate, also to learn about how to get involved in the Rise Global community, [music] and to find all of our latest content. So, back to your show. In this story, the prodal experienced the climate of the world and then he saw rightly what he was missing, which was the choice to repent.

[00:20:27]The older brother wasn't focused on grace, but the reality is he needed grace. He needed repentance as much as the prodigal did. So, I think the story is mostly about the father right here.

[00:20:43]Now, here's what I love. When I learn about the father, I feel like I'm learning about myself. I feel like I'm learning how I, in an ideal world, operate best because every single one of us are made and created in the image of our father. which means we were created with the capacity to actually be like him. I'm not saying that we're going to be perfect on this side of eternity. At least we are in his eyes because of Jesus in us. But I'm saying that it it gives us knowledge into not just a standard we're supposed to like work and achieve towards. I want to be more like Jesus in these ways. Trying harder, but like insight into, oh, I have the capacity to be like this and the permission. So, we have the capacity and the permission to be a father who is not a victim.

[00:21:50]And I say that be a father. We're not the father. As I was saying earlier, we have the opportunity to be the older brother and the choice that he didn't make, which is the older brother could have been in such unity and relationship with the father because he's in his house. He could have been in such relationship with him that he actually waited at the end of the road with the father that his heart was so in sync with the father's heart that the moment the prodigal started coming back all he could think of was compassion and mercy and celebration just like the father that he would be so aligned with the heart of his father that the older brother would have eyes to see himself and those that are lost, the prodigals rightly through eyes not of panic and fear but expectancy. I'm expecting the love that the father has to draw the prodigal back.

[00:23:02]I believe that the father is love and that love is like a magnet. It is so perfect and powerful that someone would literally have to refuse it. And there are those that are stuck in that level of evil and rebellion.

[00:23:26]But I believe the majority of those that are what we would think of as prodigals or lost, they're working it out. You know, they're coming to the end of themselves.

[00:23:39]And we have an opportunity to be older brothers who are in sync with the father's heart, not the heart of a father who's a victim.

[00:23:50]And so that's what I want to call us to today.

[00:23:54]This father in this story was no victim.

[00:23:58]He knew the power of his love that it would eventually draw this one back.

[00:24:06]The father also waited and made it easy for him to come back.

[00:24:15]He ran towards him.

[00:24:18]The older brother, he was so out of tune with what was happening. He was in a field far away. He just didn't get it.

[00:24:27]He was not in tune with the heart of the father.

[00:24:34]When we have a victim mentality, if we choose to be, yeah, I'm just over here working hard, you know, trying to please God and all these bad things happen and, you know, here God just, you know, takes care of other people better than he takes care of me. There's this jealousy factor between him and the younger brother.

[00:24:58]And yet that victim mentality is something that is is not present in our God. That means we have the capacity to experience very unjust circumstances and be the recipients of other people's horrible choices and still not have a victim. mentality that capacity resides within us because we are made in the father's image and this father was not a victim to his son.

[00:25:38]The father was able to focus on his son's both sons identity and not on his own pain.

[00:25:48]So that means we too who are created in the image of God are able to focus on what really matters the most even when pain is present. And I'm not saying that the father didn't have legitimate pain.

[00:26:03]Even the older brother, I'm sure that caused him pain because it surely affected everything for his younger brother to just up and leave and take his inheritance with him. And then to hear, you know, over time that his brother was lost, you know, there would be resentment build up there. He took on his own victim mentality from the brother, maybe even on behalf of the father.

[00:26:35]And yet not the father. The father was not focused. It's not once mentioned in this parable that the father was in pain or that he expressed that pain to the son. You know, I mean, I think many of us would be like, I'm so glad you're back, but do you have any idea, you know, how hard this was for me and you know, our family?

[00:27:09]There was none of that. There was nothing but celebration and immediate restoration of his true identity.

[00:27:20]So when the older brother comes with his comments that clearly express a victim mentality in stark contrast to the father not having a victim mentality, the father calls out the true identity even of the older brother and says, "Listen, you've never been a slave.

[00:27:42]You've been in my house. You've had access to all that is mine, to all that I am. Like I love you. You are you're you're good. What are you worried about?

[00:27:55]You know, so he's speaking in the midst of this kind of opportunities from all sides for there to be a victim mentality. The father creates the plum line. There will be no victim mentality.

[00:28:10]We are speaking to true identity.

[00:28:14]And then lastly, I want to just point out, we can be the older brother by taking the opportunity to learn from this parable by knowing the father's heart and identifying with the father's heart, who again did not allow himself to be a victim. So maybe for those of you that aren't really into the prodigal part of this, you're just, you know, you've just been through some really horrific things in your life and you've truly been victimized by other people's choices and sin and um maybe even different kinds of abuse. And there is a time and a place in our life to validate, recognize, and even expose and express the pain that comes from that. That's so important. It's a process, but it was never meant to be a lifestyle and it was never meant to be an identity. And there is a stark contrast between the two. If you find yourself constantly having to figure out and let me just bring up one other area this can be in chronic sickness and illness, pain, physical pain in your body. We can easily take on the identity of a diagnosis.

[00:29:57]That doesn't mean that there isn't a real diagnosis and something to learn from it.

[00:30:04]But like the abuse that we go through or the diagnosis we get, it's only meant to be a starting point towards victory.

[00:30:18]It's only meant to be a starting point towards going back home to who the father created us originally to be in him and in his house.

[00:30:33]No one can make that journey back for you. Whether you're the older brother or the younger brother, no one can make that journey to the father's heart for you.

[00:30:46]We can have been through such difficult things or currently going through such difficult things, physical pain, abusive relationship, whatever it is that we feel this need, even if it's just subconscious, to convince ourselves and maybe others of how real the pain is because we feel so alone in it and so stuck in But embracing it eventually creates a victim mentality and that eats over into that place of our identity.

[00:31:30]There are ways to get unstuck and um you know I'll I'll give you a few thoughts.

[00:31:36]One is just to learn what we can from this story of the father the father's love in this story. He refused to be a victim. And you know, the parable doesn't work perfectly with everyone's exact scenario, but let just that reality sink in. You know, if you don't have kids and you can't relate to that part of it, relate to the part of somebody doing you wrong or life doing you wrong.

[00:32:11]And that feeling of waiting for something to change, like it seems like an eternity. And in that place of waiting at the end of the road, that's where it gets tricky because the father could have waited at the end of the road and allowed resentment to build up, allowed a speech to begin to build up. the speech he was going to give when he came back.

[00:32:43]A speech to those around him validating this is so unfair. This is so wrong. I got to figure this out. You know, I just just stuck.

[00:32:58]And the fact that the father had the capacity in this story, I believe God speaks that to over every one of us saying what I feel like he said to me. He said, "Elizabeth, will you wait at the end of the road with me?"

[00:33:16]It's a hard place to be because there is a waiting that's required. But in that waiting, will you allow my heart to be your heart? Will you allow me to speak true identity to you so that you go through experience real legitimate pain without taking it on as an identity.

[00:33:47]I wish I had a neater, tidier way to speak this to you today. And and I feel like in some ways this message in me needs to needs to mature and percolate a little bit more.

[00:34:03]But I felt prompted and at minimum permission to share this with you today. And I I just hope that it's something that resonates with you for those who needed to hear this.

[00:34:18]The bottom line is is you're not a victim.

[00:34:24]What you've been through and what you're going through is real and hard, but it doesn't define you. How you respond to it is actually what defines you.

[00:34:42]And we choose to respond in accordance with the father's heart with unconditional powerful love. Love that heals and forgives those who have victimized us.

[00:34:59]Love that heals our own hearts because we choose to forgive.

[00:35:08]Because we choose to forgive. And we choose to even forgive the father.

[00:35:15]You know, sometimes we have to even though God hasn't done anything wrong, like we know that in our heads, but something in our hearts needs to come into alignment with that. And the only way to get there is by saying, "God, I forgive you."

[00:35:30]Like I don't know if that even makes sense, but just that letting go that forgiveness gives, you know, like like I'm okay.

[00:35:41]I'm okay. I choose to say that what you've allowed me to experience, I'm okay with it.

[00:35:53]That's a hard one. And if you're not there yet, then ask him to help you get there. Because his desire for you is that you would be so in sync with him that despite the free will of other people that has hurt and affected you, you can keep your head up high and say, "I am a victim no longer." Yeah, it's hard. It hurts.

[00:36:24]But that is not who I am.

[00:36:28]That's not who our father is. So that's not who we are.

[00:36:34]I just want to pray for you um in this place, especially if this resonated, you can relate to any of this today.

[00:36:43]Father, I just want to pray first of all for um those who have been through or are currently going through um something that is so traumatic and painful because of someone else's choice.

[00:37:00]They're a victim of the hard parts of life or the unhealthy parts of others.

[00:37:11]And I ask that you would just hold them in a way that they feel your heart, Jesus, the heart that you described in the story, the heart of our father where they've grown weary in um in all of the pain. Would you just restore and refresh?

[00:37:35]And father for those who can relate to literally the story of the prodigal and they may have a prodigal in their own family.

[00:37:46]You know like no one else does the pain that comes in that place.

[00:37:52]The disappointment and the the guilt and the um the longing.

[00:38:03]You know, would you just hold everyone, every mother or father that that feels that pain of of the prodigal?

[00:38:16]Would you hold them?

[00:38:19]Would you take that pain and trauma that comes with that and release them out from under the heaviness and the weight of that burden?

[00:38:31]And would you grant them a grace, an empowering grace to love that person radically and extravagantly, whether it's a spouse or an adult child or a distant relative, would you give them that unconditional love that you have that you described in this story That unconditional love that waits with expectation and hope, not afraid of being disappointed, with no fear.

[00:39:12]Lord, when the prodigals return, may they find us with no panic in our eyes, nothing but love and celebration on our faces. And would you teach us, Lord, how to interact with the prodigals of this world right now, the ones that are still on a journey far, far away, even the strangers in our lives that we come across that are so lost. Would you show us how to have a countenance and a look in our eyes that reflects yours?

[00:39:50]That's not worried about them, but that's just looking with longing and expectation and even excitement about where they're headed ultimately back to you.

[00:40:07]Thank you for the privilege and the joy of loving those that are still in process. Lord, teach us how to do it in a way that pleases you.

[00:40:19]And um we choose to wait with you at the end of the road, to come up under your arm and to feel what you feel.

[00:40:30]Thank you that you are never a victim and we don't have to be either.

[00:40:38]Thank you, Jesus, for the story that you told all those years ago that still ministers to us.

[00:40:48]Thank you, Jesus.

[00:40:50]Amen.

[00:40:52]All right, I'll see you next time on Choose Love.