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The father in Luke 15 watched his son demand his inheritance and leave. He did not chase him. He let him go. He gave him what he asked for and watched him walk away. There is no account of the father running after him, trying to control the outcome, cutting off his funds early to make him come home. What the father did was watch. And when the son was "yet a great way off," the father ran. The running happened only after the son had come to himself. The father could not make that happen. He waited and watched for the moment when his son turned.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
The father was watching. He saw his son when he was still a great way off — which means he had been looking in that direction. A parent cannot make a child come to themselves, but they can keep watching and be ready to run when the turn happens.
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
The parent of a struggling adult child often cannot form a prayer — the grief is too complex, too specific. The Spirit takes the inarticulate groaning and translates it into intercession. You are not outside prayer when you cannot pray.
“And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD; and thy children shall come again to their own border.”
God spoke this promise into Rachel's grief over her lost children. The Hebrew shuv — 'come again' — is the word for repentance and return. The children who have gone to a far country are not described as permanently lost. The return is promised, even when the timing is unknown.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
The Hebrew derek — 'way' — may describe the child's own particular way, the path suited to their nature. What was faithfully planted in a child does not disappear because it is not visible in adulthood. Proverbs speaks of long arcs. 'When he is old' is a long timeline.
“But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.”
God promises to contend — to fight — for the children who are held captive by forces stronger than their parents can overcome. The adult child held by addiction, destructive relationships, or spiritual darkness is in the category of captive the mighty hold. God contends for them.
Proverbs 22:6 — "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" — is one of the most debated verses in the Bible for parents of struggling adult children. The Hebrew derek — 'way' — can be read as the child's own way, the way suited to their particular nature. The promise may be less about a guarantee of outcomes and more about the endurance of what was planted. What was faithfully planted is not gone because it is not currently visible. Proverbs speaks of long arcs.
Romans 8:26–27 addresses the condition of a parent who does not know how to pray for an adult child in crisis: "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered: And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit." The Spirit takes inarticulate grief — the groaning that does not become words — and translates it into intercession before God. The parent who cannot form a prayer for their struggling child is not outside prayer. The Spirit is praying in the groaning.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
Jeremiah 31:16–17 contains an unusual sequence: God tells Rachel to stop weeping for her lost children, and then says "there is hope in thine end." The Hebrew acharit — 'end' — means the latter part, what comes after. The children are not irretrievably lost — "they shall come again from the land of the enemy." The hope for an adult child who has gone to a far country is specific in this text: they shall come again. The timing is not specified. The return is.
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