I read about the following rebels and wanderers as an encouragement to myself. I will not give up on the people in my life who have chosen to walk away from God. I thought some of my readers might also need similar encouragement.
Abraham Piper, son of pastor and author John Piper, writes about 12 Ways to Love Your Wayward Child.
Reb Bradley on Solving the Crisis in Homeschooling:
I once believed and taught that a parent could follow the right biblical steps and be assured of raising children who remained faithful to God from childhood into their adult years. In fact, as a parent of young children I judged as a failure any parent whose young adult children were prodigal. However, as my own children aged and I discovered that they were self-determining individuals with their own walks with Christ, I came to the alarming realization that I had a lot of control over their outside, but not their inside. They were like all people who were faced with the choice of whether or not they were going to listen to Christ and follow him. As Christians we all encounter opportunities many times in our lives – to choose to follow Christ or not. It was a rude awakening for me when I saw that even the best parenting could not exempt a person from making the wrong choice when faced with temptation. I do believe that by our influence we can greatly increase the likelihood our children will love and follow Christ, but I see nothing in Scripture that guarantees well-trained children will never succumb to temptation.
Consider the parable of the Prodigal Son – the righteous father raised two sons who turned out sinful – one went deep into sin and then repented – the other stayed home obediently, yet was polluted with self-righteousness and bitterness. Could the Father take blame or the credit for their sinful choices? Not at all, for the story is about God the Father Himself – it is a lesson about His mercy to His children when they fail. May we learn from God’s example!
Loving Those Who Leave by Matthew Lee Anderson.
Some books that might be helpful in this regard:
Nonfiction
Confessions by St. Augustine.
Prodigals and Those Who Love Them by Ruth Bell Graham.
The Prodigal God by Tim Keller.
Rebel With a Cause by Franklin Graham.
Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels by Tullian Tchividjian.
Fiction
Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush by Ian Maclaren.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.
Home by Marilynne Robinson.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
Michael Pearl wrote a very interesting series of articles called Jumping Ship, about homeschoolers leaving the family and turning their back on the Lord once their homeschool years were over. At the time he wrote the series, we were just getting to the generation where earliest homeschoolers were leaving the nest.
If you Google Jumping Ship by Michael Pearl, it will take you to the series. I must say that I don’t always agree with the Pearl’s (love some of their stuff, others… not so much) but this was a provocative series which I have thought of often through the years.
When we lived in another state, my pastor referred often to a book called Prodigals and Those Who Love Them by Ruth Bell Graham. I haven’t read it. Amazon only has it in used books but CBD has it as an e-book.
Oh, duh — I see that now on your list. Somehow I missed it on first reading. Sorry!
Robin Lee Hatcher had an excellent novel about a prodigal daughter in Return To Me.
Love you, sister! (And praying for you all!)
Judylynn