Incredibly Frustrated!!!!

Between the Senior Pastor at my church and a recent comment I just read on Facebook, I am incredibly frustrated by the lack of realistic thinking. Yes, we know that God has given us a promise in Proverbs . . Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. How that plays out I have no idea, what I do know is that God has no grandchildren, and our children our responsible for their choices. Parents living in some idealistic world that if they live a "perfect" Christian life before their children that they will choose God does not make it so. Does it mean that there is a better chance that they will want to have Christ in their life . . Yes . . however, people need to be realistic and see that more and more teens are leaving the church and not returning. In my own family where my children were homeschooled, taught Christian principles from a very young age, not all of them made decisions that were in line with Christ. I think this kind of thinking sets parents up for failure, disappointment, and the feeling of letting themselves down. I know this first hand because I went through these feelings myself. I felt like I did exactly what God wanted me to do with my children and when choices were made I felt like a huge failure, not only to God, but to my children, and myself. I really believe pastors, church leaders, and accountability groups need to be very careful about how they address this, because for some whose children go astray it can be devastating to their faith. I think the biggest thing we can do is to love without reservation, remembering that God loved us first, and He would've died for each one of us if we were the only one. Our kids need to see us with outstretched arms not pointing fingers.