The focal point of this podcast episode is an insightful discussion with Dr. Jim Burns regarding his latest literary work, "When Your Adult Child Strays: Trading Heartache for Hope." In this dialogue, we delve into the complexities that arise in parent-child relationships, particularly when adult children make choices that diverge from their upbringing. Dr. Burns provides valuable strategies for navigating these challenging dynamics, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a loving and supportive environment, even amidst disappointment. The episode also highlights the necessity of relinquishing control, allowing adult children to forge their own paths while parents remain a source of unconditional love and grace. Ultimately, we explore how to foster meaningful connections, despite the inevitable struggles of parenting in an ever-evolving landscape.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, Dr. Jim Burns discusses his latest book regarding adult children and their relationship with faith.
• Maintaining a climate of openness and grace is crucial for parents of adult children who may be straying from their faith.
• Open communication, love, and trust are foundational elements in rebuilding relationships with adult children who have distanced themselves.
• Parents must relinquish control and allow their adult children to make their own decisions, even if they are disappointing.
• Deconstructing faith can be a painful process, yet it may lead to a stronger, more personal relationship with God for the child.

Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

This podcast is all about providing clarity,.

Insight and encouragement for life and mission.

And my name is Aaron Sanemier and I get to be your host.

Do want to wish all the fathers, grandfathers and soon to be fathers out there a happy Father's day and invited Dr. Jim Burns to return to the podcast.

He's been on podcast several times and today we get to sit down and discuss his new book, when youn Adult Child Trading Heartache for Hope.

And I know on Father's Day when we've raised our children to follow Jesus and sometimes our adult kids make decisions and what it means to navigate those relationships, maintain the relationship, invite God in, and Jim gives some very practical do's and don'ts, but also he prioritizes the relationship and I think it's just great to have him on the podcast and just enjoy learning from him.

Do want to ask you also to continue to send in your questions for Back Channel with Foeth.

That's where we get to sit down with Dick Foth and get to learn from him on Backchannel with Foth.

We've done that for about six years now and so grateful and thankful for Dick, his investment and the listeners that listen in.

And as I get to travel, I get to hear people that share about certain questions that spoke to them and just right on time.

Right on time.

And we're grateful and thankful also for many of you.

You've listened to the podcast since the beginning.

There's about 2,000 people, unique listeners that listen every week.

And what a blessing it is to have people listening to the podcast.

And as we look forward to the days ahead, exciting days ahead, well, there's no time better than now to get started.

So here we go.

Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

So excited to be here with our friend Jim Burns.

Jim, welcome back to the podcast.

Good to be here.

I'm talking to you and you're in Springfield, so you've moved.

I've talked to you in Africa.

I've talked to you in West Virginia.

That's true.

And now you're in Springfield.

Yeah, the Queen City of the Ozarks.

That's my tagline on the email.

So you always say that you'll say welcome or you from the Queen City, from this or from that.

You did that with West Virginia and probably Africa too.

I did, I did.

It's, I've had to change it over the different places, but it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a way to begin and hopefully in a nice way.

Even when I love and sometimes my emails aren't always get to be positive,.

But I totally love it.

Jim, you've been on the podcast many times.

You're someone I consider a friend and a mentor.

But for those who haven't listened to the other the podcast in the past, you share just a little bit about yourself before we jump into our conversation today.

Well, I've been married to Kathy for 51 years, so we oftentimes, we oftentimes say that, you know, we got married at 12, but we didn't.

We got married.

We, I met her in college.

And so we have, and we have three adult daughters, four grandkids.

I am the founder of Homeward and Homeward is the largest provider of parenting seminars in the US And I love what we do.

We have four values.

Strong marriages, confident parents, empowered kids, and healthy leaders.

And all of our content and all of our ministry and all of our work goes through those four values.

Unashamedly Christian, but also very much aware that there's a lot of people out there who are, you know, they're Christian, but they're struggling like crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you've written many books and we've gotten to discuss many of those.

And today we're going to jump into your new book that's coming out when your adult child Strays, Trading heartache for hope and looking, looking forward to it.

Jim, what brought you to the place to be writing this book?

Yeah, well, actually, you and I talked a number of years ago on, on a book I wrote called Doing life with your adult children.

Keep your mouth shut and welcome that out.

When I wrote that book, Aaron, I had no idea that I would spend the rest of my life answering questions about six pages in the book.

There was only six pages written on if your adult child strays, violate values, stray from faith, things like that.

And it was a, you know, it was a short section, but that's what the questions are.

If I'm speaking someplace, that's what they come to.

I was doing a marriage conference for Chick Fil A not too long ago, and when it was done, one of the leaders of Chick Fil A, of their, of their marriage conference was standing next to me and said, do you realize that four out of five of the questions you just fielded were about your adult children?

And we didn't even mention that.

So it's just something that, you know, I'm so, I love this book.

And yet it was the hardest book I've Ever written, because I had to go into things like estrangement because a quarter of the families in America anyway, and probably outside of America, but a quarter of the families in America have someone who's estranged in their family.

And it could be dad, it could be an adult child, a lot of that going on.

And I had to deal with the tougher stuff.

And I am so thrilled to have it out now, I really am, because I think I can help a whole lot of people kind of reframe how we do the relationship with our adult children, even when they're not exactly, you know, voting the way we vote, loving Jesus, the way we love Jesus, you know, doing life like we thought they were going to do.

They didn't marry the youth pastor.

They married the, you know, guy who smokes pot and semi interested in going to church, but not exactly.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And.

And, you know, the.

The book is written for.

For parents and their children.

But a lot of the principles I found very applicable to.

Even if you had a brother or a sister or somebody else who had strayed from the faith, I think a lot of the principles.

No, I think so.

It's not just on straying from faith, but there's a lot of that in it.

And in fact, you know, the book is called when youn Adult Child Strays Trading Heartache for Hope, like you said, but even for you, I'm speaking in June on when a loved one Strays.

And so I think the principles work both ways.

Yeah, it's there.

There's, you know, if your brother strayed, it's sad, or your sister strayed or, you know, aunt so and so strays.

That is hard.

It's.

It's probably more heartbreaking when your own child does, I'm sure.

So there's that element of grief and, you know, shame and, you know, we should have prayed more.

We should have taken him to church every day instead of, you know, just three times a week.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, Jim, you.

You share about the.

The relationship between a parent and a child that it changes at 18.

Yeah.

Is.

Is that something this.

Is that something, this happens?

Is that a conversation that takes place?

Is it something that takes place?

Could you share more about that?

Yeah, well, it takes place.

It's all three of the things you said, because most people aren't prepared for it.

Most adults aren't prepared for it.

But let's face it, you know, a parent, I mean, we never went to parenting school on how to be a parent with an adult child.

So we don't know what we're doing.

Our adult child definitely doesn't know at 18 how to be an adult yet.

They're in that process of learning, but they're saying, I'm an adult, so treat me like an adult.

And you're going, I wish you, you know, grow up and act like an adult.

And.

And so sometimes it just kind of naturally moves in a direction, but sometimes that's not the best way.

I'm saying to parents, no, we got to be intentional.

We have to give our kid, even, no matter how they're doing in their life, the passport to adulthood and say, you're now an adult.

You're going to make these decisions.

I'll come alongside of you.

I'd be glad to.

I don't think we even verbally say it, but we're going to move from parenting a child to.

To being a parent of an adult.

And.

And frankly, that means reinventing the relationship.

So I find that the parents who do the best are the ones who actually are proactive and intentional about it.

The reason I find that, Aaron, is because Kathy and I didn't do that.

With our first child.

We were like, we're still the parents.

And she was, like, not loving it.

She went to a Christian school, and she did some goofy things.

She wasn't horrible, but she.

She literally was not doing it the way we were going to do it.

And we were in shock, but we hadn't prepared for that.

Yeah.

Wow.

And it is.

I think it.

And the first child gets the lessons that get learned on them.

And, you know, our daughter went.

She went back to.

She came from.

From Africa, back to university.

And, you know, we learned a lot.

And there's probably books written on that, but sometimes you have to learn them because I think sometimes we think we're unique and our relationships are unique.

And so that's.

That might apply to other people, but maybe it doesn't apply to me.

Oh, but, hey, that was me in the teen years.

Yeah.

I was a youth pastor.

So I went, no, I'm the coolest, you know, parent in the universe.

I.

With Rebecca, my middle.

Emphasis on middle.

I one time said to her, no.

She said to me, dad, all of my friends thinks you are the coolest dad.

And I'm like, oh, my gosh, Rebecca.

She hadn't said a nice thing to me, like, you know, a year.

And I said, she's.

And she's telling me, this is what Ashley thinks.

This is what so and so thinks.

And she tells me, my head is getting so big.

And all of a sudden I made the mistake of saying, do you think I'm cool?

No, you won't want to.

This movie.

And my head just shrunk right back.

So, yeah, I would just expect, I did, I expected to be easy teen and adult.

And for Kathy and I, we found it really challenging in both the teens and then the, you know, going into the early adulthood especially.

Well, it's a lot better.

Now, is that both sided, Jim?

Is it the parents that struggle with the change and the child struggles with the change?

I think the child does too.

I think sometimes they struggle.

Like when I my book doing life with your adult child.

And again, I don't know yet with this book, but I was doing a big conference, there's about 4,500 people at it.

And I was doing a book signing and these people kept coming up to me.

And I had just been interviewed with the 4,500 people.

And my big thing was, you know, unsolicited advice is taken as criticism.

Yeah, we're saying that to the parents.

Well, these people are saying, will you sign my book?

And I look at these people, I, I mean, there was a number of people have adult children, but then I'd go, wait, you can't be an adult.

You can't be the parent of an adult.

You look too young.

Oh, no, no, no.

Give it to my mom.

Right.

Dear Claire, read this book.

Wow.

Because they had issues with how their parents were still choosing to kind of be all encompassing in their life and giving advice and doing all the things that I tell people not to.

In fact, there will be people who read when your adult child strays.

You actually would be one of the few who've read it because literally it's just out.

And I think there'll be people who will be disappointed that I don't talk much about fixing the adult child.

Friend read it on the way to Nashville two days ago.

He read the book on the way he was going to see his adult child who's not, you know, living it the way he'd like.

And he said, I was looking for ideas to help child's name.

He goes, what you did was, you told me how to do this and do it better.

He said, by the way, you know, I've now met with him.

This literally is this week.

I've now met with him.

And it was so much better because I used your strategy as opposed to using mine, which you know, was kind of guilt and shame.

Okay, good.

But you know, it is.

We both have to learn.

It's a, it's a relearning, it's a reinventing.

And adulthood is very different than childhood.

We're in control, at least semi control when they're teens, but now we're not in control.

Yeah, it's a huge shift.

Jim, you jump into, in the book about deconstruction.

So what do you mean by deconstruction and the importance of that in the world we live in today?

Well, it's a big word that we use a lot, especially in Christian circles today.

And deconstruction, for me, at its simplest form, deconstruction means the death of a person's belief in God or the death of a person's relationship with the church.

Let me go back though.

There's forms of deconstruction.

Some deconstruction is not all bad.

You know, our daughter Christy, her last, she, she was a writer in her last column for the school newspaper as a senior in college.

She said I had to disown my parents faith to own my own faith.

Interestingly enough, I sat next to her at church.

We go to the same church, you know, I took the grandkids, you know, to vacation Bible school.

We go to camp together.

There's a lot of that now.

But she had to really kind of go through a process of disowning our faith to, to own our own faith.

And, and sometimes that's deconstruction and sometimes that's deconstruction in a good way.

You know, even when it comes to some of the issues, you know, some of our kids need to go through owning their own.

And to do that they have to give up some stuff.

So we got parents who are just, you know, so upset about the way that their kids vote or the way that their kids, you know, what they believe and whatnot.

Part of that deconstruction is that for them to kind of, you know, quit believing some of those things of the parents so that they can believe their own.

Now, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

I keep finding, like with Christy, she's very close in alignment with me on, on scripture and things like that.

She wasn't for a while.

You know, that drove me nuts.

And I mean, honestly, I mean, I was frightened, but it actually became a good thing.

So what you just heard me answer was, yeah, it could be the death of a relationship with God.

The prodigal son left the family, probably left strayed from God, definitely, he came back and he came back a different person.

Well, it's the same with some of our kids.

It can be a horrible thing and that's what parents are grieving like crazy or it can be a semi okay thing.

So that's what's hard.

And we use the same word, deconstruction.

Yeah.

So I wish there was a. I wanted to come up with another word.

And then I found some words that my friend Dave Kinnaman used.

He's the president of the Barna group where he was talking about, you know, nomads and there's prodigals and there's some who are just, it's.

They still believe in God, there's not a death.

But they don't love the church or they're disappointed that the church does things that they don't now agree with.

So a lot of the Gen Z is coming back to Jesus like crazy.

But they're also not as thrilled about certain things that the church does or certain beliefs that the church does.

So they're in a revival going on right now.

But, you know, half of those kids believe that there's a, that the theology of sexuality is very different than the theology of sexuality of their parents.

So it's an interesting time in our, in our, in our life and in our families for sure.

And Jim, for parents listening in any wisdom and advice for them if their child's going through this process of deconstructing their faith.

You shared about your daughter and that process things, you learned some things maybe to do things not to do what.

I say to parents all the time, maintain a climate of openness and grace.

And you know, grace doesn't mean you agree with them.

And so I don't know why we think we have to, you know, try to out argue them.

I think we have to show them love and grace because they are not going to be drawn if we say you're wrong and I'm right as much as they're going to be drawn to, you know, grace.

You know, there's a quote, and I have it in front of me here.

We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they will, with all their hearts want to know the source of it.

I mean, I love that.

So to me, that kind of a thought is how, what we have to do.

So, so what I talk about, and I talk about in the book is how do we maintain a climate of open and grace while not agreeing with their actions, not agreeing with their morals, not agreeing with their values, not agreeing with what they're doing in their relationship with God.

And I think you can do that.

And this is where as parents, and this has been a tough lesson for me because I like to fix it.

I like to tell people how to fix it.

But I have to recognize that God is sovereign and that I am not.

And so I had to learn to relinquish to make my relationship better with my kids.

I had to actually relinquish them to God and, and actually understand that he is their heavenly Father and his heart for them has not drifted.

Yeah.

And yet that's hard.

I mean, even Jesus at the end of his life, he was in the garden and he said, lord, not my will, but your.

We use that and we go, that's amazing.

Jesus.

Actually he was saying he knew he was going to the cross and he said, not my will.

He said it three times, Aaron.

So it was like, in case you didn't hear me, so sacrilegious.

Some of your, you know, your people are going to like, this guy is brutal.

But he kind of said it three times.

Yeah.

So what he was saying was, you know, if you could take this cup from me, I'm fine with that.

But.

And I think I did that.

And my kids don't have the horror stories that I hear every day.

But yeah, so, so I think it's so important that we recognize that.

And also what I find is with a lot of people who are in deconstruction mode, their going through doubts.

And the point I want to say is doubters are accepted here in this family.

And Christy and I, it's funny, I keep talking about Christy today, but Christy and I were in a discussion this week about a very well known Christian leader who's, who's making a move of deconstruction her own.

And she said, my daughter said she is the spokesman, spokesperson for the millennial generation.

And I said she is a spokesperson.

Christy, I know this woman, really.

And I'm really sad.

The direction she's going, she's choosing to basically she's broken some morals.

So now you either have to come back to Jesus or you change your morals.

So that's what she's done.

Okay.

And Kristy didn't, didn't realize it.

Like this person calls me a mentor kind of a thing.

Right.

But I said she's not the spokesman.

There are other spokespeople who I think are healthier in her walk right now.

We need to pray for her, we need to love her.

I said, christy, do you know I talked to her about once a month.

She goes, I had no idea because she's kind of starstruck by this woman right now.

But you know, those kinds of conversations that in Christie's doubting, she's going, well, like, why has the Christian world just turned their back on her?

Well, I don't think we should.

I think we need to continue to love her and agree to disagree.

I oftentimes say I'm not to this woman.

I go, I'm not in alignment with you, but you know, I love you.

And she goes, I know you do.

Yeah.

And interesting.

I just, it just kind of brought tears to my eyes because I'm.

It's so important for me to share that with my kids but not see them compromise my faith issues.

Some parents think you have to compromise.

You're compromising if you, you know, aren't agreeing with your son or daughter.

You can not agree with your son or daughter and you can still be in a relationship.

So to me, you know, that is, is so key.

And then I also say, you know, realize I was gonna give you all these points, but blame, you can't blame yourself.

I think as our kids did some bouncing or chose boyfriends, especially all girls, those boyfriends that we were like, oh my goodness, what are you doing?

We would blame ourselves as if it was our fault, you know, and I'm not defined by my kids choices.

Yeah.

And, and I have to.

And Kathy and I have to look at each other because Kathy feels this probably more than me.

And I think sometimes moms feel it more.

She goes, oh my gosh, you know, what did we do wrong?

Yeah, well, we didn't really do.

We did probably a pretty good job of not perfect by any means, but we did a pretty good job at raising them.

They chose a different route and with our kids it was kind of, for a while and you know, they kind of, you know, making the, making the turn.

Yeah.

Jim, what does you.

You write about overthinking?

What does overthinking look like for.

For parents?

You know, the, the pain of a child straying.

Yeah.

Walking away from the faith is real.

There's no doubt about that.

But then what does overthinking look like?

Well, overthinking is exactly what I was just talking about, that we overthink the issue.

If we would have, like we a lot of times, because I'm a speaker on Easter, we actually went away and went on vacation because I don't speak on.

I spoke this year on Palm Sunday, but typically, and I think I've been asked to do it, but we would typically take a vacation.

And then Kathy started going, we're not at our church on Easter, which is a. I realize that's a loss.

We went to another church and we know that we go the same place and we know this church well.

I probably preached at that church more than I have my own.

But her overthinking was if only playing the if only or the shoulda game, if only we would have done this or whatever.

Now, I'm not throwing my wife under the bus because it's me too.

But a few signs that you're overthinking.

And I think a lot of families are unhealthy because we are overthinking.

We're unable to think about anything else but the loss of our kid.

We're a one topic parent.

We're not even dealing with the joy that this child brings us at times.

We're only thinking that they strayed from faith.

They are living with a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

They told you that they don't, you know, believe the same way you do with Polish, whatever it is.

Right.

So I think we're unable to think about anything else and we become what we call a one topic parent.

That's overthinking.

And we feel mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Yeah, and what I, on a daily basis, Aaron, I meet people who are mentally and emotionally exhausted over the fact that their kid is not, you know, doing it.

And we're second guessing our, you know, decisions from the past.

As parents, we have to constantly remind ourselves that, that if we're overthinking that, you know, the mistakes we make is not what's causing our kids to do this at times.

Now, again, we have to be realistic.

If a, if a parent is abusive or a parent has done some, you know, silly things.

I mean, the parents engage, they, they need to go get their help.

But overthinking is when you just are constantly asking the what if question.

And you go over and over, you have to ask yourself, one of the reasons why I talk about overthinking in the book is because I want people to go, am I an overthinker now?

Sometimes, like, I've been in a small group, I've talked about this before, but I've been in a small group for 24 years.

I sometimes have to say to them, do you think I'm overthinking?

Because they actually know me better and they love me, these guys that I'm with, six of us.

And, and Kathy is obviously easier at saying, you're overthinking everybody.

But I say the same thing to Kathy and she go, and sometimes she'll say, I don't think I am.

But it's because it's.

She's.

She is.

Yeah, but she's so engaged in whatever is going on with the.

And typically it's around our kids.

But you can do.

You can do overthinking at work, you can do overthinking in ministry.

You can do overthinking with so many other things.

So do you think you talked about the fatigue and you just being worn down?

Do you think that's grief?

You know, you think of the steps of grief with what, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, you know, and my assumption is, is if your child makes this, this change in the deconstruction process, there would be grief involved.

And.

Or do you think that's a.

Not a good application of that process of grief?

I think it's one point.

Okay.

You know, I think a lot of us who go through grief are not aware that our fatigue is caused by.

It could even be overthinking.

But our grief is caused by whatever the pain that we're dealing with, and maybe we're dealing with it in an unhealthy way.

So even in the book, I talk about the fact that if you're going to be the grown up in the room, then you're going to have to have what I call a circle of support.

Different people use different phrases, but I like the term circle of support.

So do you have people, if you're fatigued, who are, who are lifting you up or who are helping you think through these issues?

And definitely, I think when we're focused on an issue and it's not going well, thus the adult child, if that's the case, you know, I think we can be fatigued.

You know, Moses and the Israelites are battling the Amalekites.

Moses held his rod up and the Israelites are winning the war.

And then he got fatigued, and then he sat down.

And then the Amalekites start winning the war.

It's a story in the Bible.

And then what do you do?

He did a brilliant thing.

He got people around him to lift his arms and he didn't have to do it himself.

But a lot of people, when their kids are doing goofy things or whatever it might be with straying, then what happens is they don't want to Tell anybody in the church or they don't want to tell anybody.

So now they're doing it alone.

That's exhausting.

Yeah.

To have to not shoulder.

You know, in my family, you know, I was telling you before the podcast that Kathy's kind of sick.

Well, I get calls every day for my girls, and, you know, they're like, have you thought about this?

I just looked online.

They're all now doctors.

You know, you have a medical background, so you might must go crazy when people come in and talk to you, because now they're going, I just looked up this medication.

Dad, you need to tell the doctor to give mom this medication.

Some of that's not good.

But you know what?

It's showing Kathy, they love her.

Yeah.

Because they're coming around her.

So.

But we also need somebody who, in our small group, we've got a guy going through a tough time with his son, and every time he comes into the room, we go, hey, how's it going this week?

I've been praying for you.

I love.

And he loves that.

Yeah, yeah.

I love, I think, being known.

Known for sure.

It's a.

You know, I had a mother share with me, you know, her kids, majority of them were following, following the Lord, and one of them was straying, and somebody in the church came up and said, you know, I'm so glad to see that you're.

One of your kids is straying too, because that lets me know your family's human.

But this mother was so hurt by that, you know, that someone would see that.

And Jim, for families that are involved in ministry and then their kids have strayed or adult child straying from the faith, could you speak to that?

And words of encouragement and the commonality of it.

I think it's one of the biggest pains and this happens in my life all the time.

The people could be on the mission field.

They sent their kids back to the United States to go to college.

It could be a pastor.

And they.

I don't believe that they can do this alone.

I honestly believe that they do need back to the circle of support.

They need a circle of support.

They don't need to announce it to the church, especially if the kid is, you know, that that's not needed.

In fact, that could hurt the relationship with the child, but they need to have a place where they can be authentic.

Our daughter Becca, who became a missionary actually in Ecuador right after this, but she went through real tough times.

Story.

And the very first thing I did is I walked into my small group, these guys Read my books on parenting and marriage.

They come to my conferences, I'm in their group, I'm a peer.

And I said, I'm dying right now.

Let me tell you what happened.

And, and I didn't ask for permission from Becca to do that.

But later I said, hey, by the way, I used my group and they love you like crazy, you know, and you know what?

I felt so loved by them and supported by them.

I didn't get any shunning for that.

But again, we, we feel like, you know, if our kids are messing up, then it's a stain in our, you know, own ministry.

That's not the case.

We've got some pretty interesting stories in the Bible about some of the kids of biblical characters who really goofed up.

So I think we need to be authentic and be real.

And I find like Kathy and I, we do these marriage conferences and I almost always open with, Kathy and I have been married so many years, then they clap and I go and we have a high maintenance marriage.

Some people have it easy, we don't.

And then I tell a, like a crummy story about us.

And you know what?

Nobody comes up and goes, I don't want to hear you anymore talk about marriage.

I want to, I want to spend time with you because I relate to that.

Or let's say I came from a dysfunctional family.

My dad was an alcoholic, which is true.

I have, I never have anybody go, well, I can't, I'm not going to listen to you.

Then they come up and say, hey, I came from a dysfunctional family.

You just gave me a lot of hope.

So the mistake we make in ministry is thinking that we can't share from authenticity.

Who do you like the best as communicators and mentors and the books that you read, and you read more books than anybody I know.

It's people who are authentic, they love Jesus, sure, but they're not saying they have it together.

And so I think we have to learn from that.

But we can't do it alone.

And it's hard.

It's hard on the ego.

It's hard.

I remember a time when Kathy and I are going through a real tough time in our marriage.

Not, not so much that we're going to like get a divorce.

We just didn't like each other.

And Kathy goes, maybe we should quit doing marriage conferences because we are such, so hypocritical.

I go, we're not hypocritical.

We, last time we did it together, we actually shared about one of our arguments.

And so I said, so that's not hypocritical.

It's hypocritical if you act like you have it all together.

I want to encourage, and I know you have a lot of listeners who are in ministry.

No, be authentic.

Lead out of authenticity and integrity.

Integrity doesn't mean perfect.

When the Bible says whoever walks in, integrity walks securely.

Well, I even think you're going to have kids who are more secure in your life.

But integrity means that you're doing it with authenticity and with honesty.

And nobody is perfect.

Nobody has the perfect family.

Everybody burps, etc.

Etc.

Yeah.

So I think that's a key.

That's a key issue for people in ministry.

I wish we could spend more time when we speak to pastors and missionaries and things.

It's just saying, would you ease up a little bit?

You don't have to do this perfectly, but make sure you're doing it with a, do life with a, with a group of people.

I mean, that's very biblical.

Yeah.

And in the world we live in today, there's no secrets.

Right.

You know, and everybody knows, whether we, we share it or not.

People know.

People know what, what's going, what's going on, Jim.

When maybe somebody's listening into this today and they, their child strayed from the, the faith and there's been some tension in the family and they want to take some steps towards healing that broken relationship.

Any words of wisdom on how to.

What steps to take on?

They want it.

And, and my.

Some.

Hopefully the child wants it or the adult child wants it too.

I think typically they do sometimes in estrangement, that's not the case.

But even in estrangement, I think they want it to come back.

Okay, well, I say if it's really in a negative thing, let the child, you know, kind of come back at their pace.

So while you're doing that, keep a welcome mat orientation with them.

So you're welcome, you're loved, you're cared for.

I know a guy who for years was dying because his kid was.

Had walked from faith and had made some really bad decisions and.

But he kept the relationship because of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the son of the Dodgers.

And he would say, hey, buddy, you want to.

I got some tickets.

You want to go to the Dodger game?

And they would go to the Dodger games and he had a whole list of things he wanted to talk to his son about and he never got to it because the son didn't really want to talk about it.

Over a time period through the Dodgers, he kind of, all of a sudden, he felt the.

The son felt like the dad was trustworthy and safe.

And the son said some things about an addiction that he had.

He said, you know, I could use your wisdom and some help on it.

Well, it was a porn addiction.

It was a tough addiction.

And the son felt so much shame, but he had done this for years, that he was walking away from the family and this.

And the dad said, you know what?

I can get you some help, and I'll, you know, let's.

Let's look at this together.

And no shame here.

And ended up getting that son the help.

And now they kind of have a ministry, if you would, on the side.

It's not.

They're both in business, but they have a ministry at their church with others who struggle with, you know, the porn addictions.

How cool is that?

But that's a hard thing because, you know, what I want to do is just fix it.

I know how to fix this.

You know, why does she want to go to Europe to find, you know, herself?

I. I can tell her in like, five minutes, this is what I do.

Anyone talk to me, and that'd be.

And it's.

It saves some money and time and they could get done.

Exactly.

Get done a lot.

A lot quicker.

So that's.

In a situation, Jim, where it's.

The healing wants to take place.

But what if the.

What if the relationship is toxic and complicated?

Any words of wisdom for that type of relationship?

Yeah, no, I think of it as toxic, especially if, let's say, for example, the son or the daughter and adult child, you know, they have an addiction issue.

We try to fix the relationship before we fix the addiction.

It's really hard because if they're addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex, you know, you name it, they're really not going to get the help until.

The first statement is to try to help them think through the.

The addiction process.

And a lot of times what that means is just slowing it down and kind of waiting.

In the book, I tell a story about a guy named Eric.

It's not his real name.

His mom and dad are pretty well known pastors in the.

Not just the community, but in the United States.

And their son had some of this stuff wasn't working.

They stayed in the story.

It was messy.

They didn't hear from him for months at a time.

And 15 years later, the dad is sitting, standing in the pulpit.

The mom is sitting in her seat where she always sat.

The church that Eric grew up in and he stands at the back where a bride would stand at a wedding.

He stood there through the whole worship service.

He didn't want to come.

He wanted to come back home.

And he wanted to let them know that after 15 years, but he did.

He felt shame and he didn't want to walk down the aisle and everybody knew him and whatnot.

After the worship service was done, kind of bad timing because everybody's looking around at church, right?

He walks down the aisle, sits next to his mom and holds her hand.

And he said, I'm back.

The parents had gone through, literally, in the right sense, hell.

I'm not talking about, you know, I mean, it was just terrible.

So they'd gone through this, but they stayed in the story.

They stayed in the mess whenever they could.

They, you know, they didn't love what was going on.

They didn't love the relationship.

The mom said the hardest thing in her life was when he said, at about three years of this 15 year journey, I don't believe in God anymore.

I don't accept what you guys are doing now.

I respect you guys, but you're not.

You just have to hear, I don't believe.

I mean, how tough.

Fifteen years later, he comes back, starts on the end.

The mom's told me that she cried through the whole service and that even Eric, her son, goes, mom, you got to calm down, you know, because it's like, I'm back.

It's okay.

She said she actually cried for three days.

But he came back with some bumps and bruises in his life.

But he stayed.

So even in those toxic things now they had to.

This is what was hard about relinquishing it.

They didn't help him through the toxic stuff.

They could.

I know these people.

They're awesome people.

They're awesome ministry people.

But he had to find it as on, you know, life experience taught him that he needed to go to get help eventually.

So he went through a program.

He got involved in a really cool thing at another church.

Not in his area, their area.

And then he finally felt strong enough to come back and be with his family.

And, you know, the relationship is great.

Now again, he has bruises and bumps and some scars and, you know, the parents say, they told me not too long ago that the hard part for him is he has to take smoking breaks because, you know, he, you know, became an addiction for him.

Nicotine.

It's kind of weird.

We're at a restaurant and he has to go outside.

My son has to go outside and smoke.

And I'm the pastor in the community that everybody knows.

He said, you know, we're just glad he's back, and eventually, hopefully, he'll get rid of that, you know, horrible nicotine habit.

But right now, we're not even talking about that.

We're just glad he's back.

And guess what?

Most of the time, they talk to me.

There are tears in their eyes.

Wow.

And these are tears of joy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good words and words of encouragement.

Jim, any questions I should have asked you before I ask you to pray for us?

You know, I really think the question that, you know, I mean, there's tons of questions.

We could.

You and I can talk all day.

We.

We talked too long just before the thing started, because I just love spending time with you, but I really think that parents have to make sure that they are the adult in the room.

And so what I'm saying with that, and I use that phrase, is that we can't be the living martyr.

We have to improve the relationship.

We have to lead with love.

We have to embrace the shift.

And the shift isn't that we're embracing their sinfulness or their straying.

The shift is that they're in charge of their life, and they're gonna make some decisions that we're gonna be disappointed about.

And so to do that means we have to have the incredible discipline to.

To not control, to not nag, to not tell them how bad they are, but actually to build a relationship of trust and safety, because they'll never come back if they don't have a relationship with us of trust and safety.

And some people would say, well, my daughter's living with this guy, so we're shunning.

Is that going to work again?

I don't think the daughter should be living with the guy, but I'm not sure that the way to.

To help her come back into a loving relationship with you all is to shun and see.

So it's really hard.

It's complicated.

It's.

It's confusing, and you can't do that alone, like I've said.

But that's the question, you know, a lot of people don't ask is, you know, what am I doing wrong?

So we have to reframe our mindset.

And to reframe our mindset says, yeah, you know, Justin got married to a really difficult lady because she got pregnant, and yet we have a beautiful grandchild now.

And yet he isn't going to church.

And the wife definitely isn't.

But the sister.

His sister is now the godparent to, you know, this child and the sister has an inroad there.

On Mother's Day, Justin called Mom, took her to lunch, gave her flowers.

He wasn't doing that.

Those are all good things.

Does.

Do they still.

The fact is, he's still living a life that they're not happy about.

Okay.

And they don't love the woman.

I mean, maybe they love her, but they don't like her.

But that's.

That's what you do if you're going to be the adult in the room.

And you got to do it with God's strength, because you can't do it on your own.

For sure.

Jim, always enjoy spending time with you.

You pray for us today.

Yeah.

Lord, thank you so much for the Clarity podcast.

Thank you for the many, many, many people who are reached and touched by conversations that happen with Aaron on a really regular basis.

I.

The people right now because of this conversation who are just struggling, they're hurting.

They are so frustrated with the direction of their family or the choices of other family members.

And I pray that you would give them the strength and the wisdom to lean on you, relinquish whatever that situation is, and then stay in the messy middle and do it by the power of the Holy Spirit, not on their own, or they're not going to make it.

And I just pray, God, that you would be present in all of that and help us to understand your loving, unfailing love for us as a parent, our parent, our heavenly parent.

Pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.