This is a hard lesson! It is one we all do too often, especially  with the ones we love most.

When a loved one needs advice we too often address it head on. For example, your little Johnny is deciding on a career move and you jump right into all the pros and cons, honing in on the advise that makes sense.  There’s nothing wrong here. Your adult son likely knows what job direction he wants to take, he is only looking for affirmation, so give it to him if he needs it. You’re trying to help!

But before you go too far with your council you think, “The job thing is important, but what about your little boy living with his girlfriend, not reading his bible, or going to church? You’ve told him a million times about the “first things.” You’ve laid out the temporal and spiritual truths clearly and often, hoping he would not depart from your teaching and God’s word. You taught him that the world hands out advice inconsistent with the God’s word and the fear of the Lord is the  the beginning of Godly wisdom. Still pragmatism is the task at hand. He wants work advice not moral guidance. The pull of the world is strong. Money, career, work/fun balance seems way more important to your manly boy than marriage, children, church, reading God’s word, and honoring Him.

Everything you’ve calculated for him and every consideration he’s contemplating resolves not to his spiritual condition, but to his present needs.

So, should you change direction or stay focused on the job thing? If you’re like me you’ve already spent decades on biblical indoctrination and prayer for your son. You know  the foundation you laid is on solid ground not sand.  And if Christ is not the foundation, the center, and the goal. “What does it profit him to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) this is the only metric that  matters!

Do you understand the real dilemma here? You can force the conversation to drift into moralism or you can keep the gospel front and center.

The most urgent conversation we can have with our kids is to address the consequences of their wayward sins with love and compassion. This the gospel! Tell them “Christ came to save sinners!” Believe me, if their hearts are not hardened they know habitual, unrepentant sexual sin is incompatible with genuine saving faith. Living with a girlfriend, homosexuality, transgenderism,  etc are not “gray areas” or a “secondary issues.” These thing are open, ongoing rebellion against the plain commands of God.  His new job is what is secondary, so treat it as such.

I think the best advice, after afriming their career choices “as choices”, is tell your children that they also have the power to choose the narrow road – and to stay on it through Christ.

Keeping the gospel of grace front and center in your child’s life is imperative. Keep preaching the cross, the empty tomb, the coming King. And pray!  A young person who is truly gripped by the beauty and grace of Jesus will count everything (a new job, a live-in girlfriend, a licentous relationship) as rubbish compared to knowing Him (Phil 3:7–11). Trust me on this one! It’s biblical.