{"id":837645,"date":"2024-10-09T05:00:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T10:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=837645"},"modified":"2024-10-08T11:48:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T16:48:16","slug":"when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"When You\u2019ve (Almost) Lost Hope for Your Unbelieving or Prodigal Loved Ones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>I\u2019ve heard the story so many times lately that it seems hardly a week passes by without my hearing about this grief: believing loved ones praying for family members who\u2019ve never followed Christ or who have abandoned the faith of their upbringing. Sometimes it\u2019s parents praying for teen and adult children; at other times, it\u2019s teen and adult children still praying for older parents and grandparents.\u00a0<\/p> <p>I know this anguish because I prayed for 36 years for my dad and 47 years for my mom before they both became Christ-followers. I would be lying if I said that I never once lost faith or doubted God in the decades that I prayed. I was a pastor for a number of those years, but even I wondered if God were ever going to answer my prayers. It felt like the more I prayed, the worse the situation seemed.\u00a0<\/p> <p>My wife, Pam,<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>I\u2019ve heard the story so many times lately that it seems hardly a week passes by without my hearing about this grief: believing loved ones praying for family members who\u2019ve never followed Christ or who have abandoned the faith of their upbringing. Sometimes it\u2019s parents praying for teen and adult children; at other times, it\u2019s teen and adult children still praying for older parents and grandparents.\u00a0<\/p> <p>I know this anguish because I prayed for 36 years for my dad and 47 years for my mom before they both became Christ-followers. I would be lying if I said that I never once lost faith or doubted God in the decades that I prayed. I was a pastor for a number of those years, but even I wondered if God were ever going to answer my prayers. It felt like the more I prayed, the worse the situation seemed.\u00a0<\/p> <p>My wife, Pam,<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":837649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,184,190,175,192,177,14796,180,18470,194,18058],"tags":[19631,19036,19629,19632,19630,19628],"class_list":["post-837645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-discipleship","category-family","category-grow","category-how-to","category-lead","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-prayer-grow","category-preaching","category-premium","tag-hope","tag-prayer","tag-prodigal-loved-ones","tag-reaching-prodigals","tag-reaching-unbelieving-loved-ones","tag-unbelieving-loved-ones","membership-content","access-restricted"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When You\u2019ve (Almost) Lost Hope for Your Unbelieving or Prodigal Loved Ones | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019ve heard the story so many times lately that it seems hardly a week passes by without my hearing about this grief: believing loved ones praying for family members who\u2019ve never followed Christ or who have abandoned the faith of their upbringing. Sometimes it\u2019s parents praying for teen and adult children; at other times, it\u2019s teen and adult children still praying for older parents and grandparents. I know this anguish because I prayed for 36 years for my dad and 47 years for my mom before they both became Christ-followers. I would be lying if I said that I never once lost faith or doubted God in the decades that I prayed. I was a pastor for a number of those years, but even I wondered if God were ever going to answer my prayers. It felt like the more I prayed, the worse the situation seemed. My wife, Pam, and I don\u2019t have children, but we have been surrogate \u201cparents,\u201d \u201cgrandparents,\u201d \u201caunt\u201d and \u201cuncle\u201d to some who\u2019ve wandered from the faith. I know how much we\u2019ve grieved these situations, and I cannot imagine how much deeper the pain must be for biological parents who did their best to raise their offspring in a Christian home. As a pastor, I\u2019ve wept with more than one parent bearing this burden; at other times, I\u2019ve wept myself over folks I love. Sometimes, though, I\u2019ve watched as God graciously drew to Himself someone for whom I and others had been praying for years. The latter situation has always been worth the wait. My goal in this article is to help you not lose hope when you have unbelieving or prodigal loved ones\u2014or, if all your family members are believers, to help you encourage others who do face the struggle with loved ones. My thoughts are probably not revolutionary, but I trust that hearing them again will be important when your faith begins to struggle.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When You\u2019ve (Almost) Lost Hope for Your Unbelieving or Prodigal Loved Ones | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve heard the story so many times lately that it seems hardly a week passes by without my hearing about this grief: believing loved ones praying for family members who\u2019ve never followed Christ or who have abandoned the faith of their upbringing. Sometimes it\u2019s parents praying for teen and adult children; at other times, it\u2019s teen and adult children still praying for older parents and grandparents. I know this anguish because I prayed for 36 years for my dad and 47 years for my mom before they both became Christ-followers. I would be lying if I said that I never once lost faith or doubted God in the decades that I prayed. I was a pastor for a number of those years, but even I wondered if God were ever going to answer my prayers. It felt like the more I prayed, the worse the situation seemed. My wife, Pam, and I don\u2019t have children, but we have been surrogate \u201cparents,\u201d \u201cgrandparents,\u201d \u201caunt\u201d and \u201cuncle\u201d to some who\u2019ve wandered from the faith. I know how much we\u2019ve grieved these situations, and I cannot imagine how much deeper the pain must be for biological parents who did their best to raise their offspring in a Christian home. As a pastor, I\u2019ve wept with more than one parent bearing this burden; at other times, I\u2019ve wept myself over folks I love. Sometimes, though, I\u2019ve watched as God graciously drew to Himself someone for whom I and others had been praying for years. The latter situation has always been worth the wait. My goal in this article is to help you not lose hope when you have unbelieving or prodigal loved ones\u2014or, if all your family members are believers, to help you encourage others who do face the struggle with loved ones. My thoughts are probably not revolutionary, but I trust that hearing them again will be important when your faith begins to struggle.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-10-09T10:00:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/prodigal-son-hugs-his-own-father.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chuck Lawless\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chuck Lawless\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chuck Lawless\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f\"},\"headline\":\"When You\u2019ve (Almost) Lost Hope for Your Unbelieving or Prodigal Loved Ones\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-10-09T10:00:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/\"},\"wordCount\":2028,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/prodigal-son-hugs-his-own-father.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Hope\",\"Prayer\",\"Prodigal Loved Ones\",\"Reaching Prodigals\",\"Reaching Unbelieving Loved Ones\",\"Unbelieving Loved Ones\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Church Answers\",\"Discipleship\",\"Family\",\"Grow\",\"How To\",\"Lead\",\"Monday\/Wednesday Featured\",\"Outreach &amp; Evangelism\",\"Prayer\",\"Preaching\",\"Premium\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/\",\"name\":\"When You\u2019ve (Almost) Lost Hope for Your Unbelieving or Prodigal Loved Ones | Church Answers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/prodigal-son-hugs-his-own-father.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-10-09T10:00:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f\"},\"description\":\"I\u2019ve heard the story so many times lately that it seems hardly a week passes by without my hearing about this grief: believing loved ones praying for family members who\u2019ve never followed Christ or who have abandoned the faith of their upbringing. 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I would be lying if I said that I never once lost faith or doubted God in the decades that I prayed. I was a pastor for a number of those years, but even I wondered if God were ever going to answer my prayers. It felt like the more I prayed, the worse the situation seemed. My wife, Pam, and I don\u2019t have children, but we have been surrogate \u201cparents,\u201d \u201cgrandparents,\u201d \u201caunt\u201d and \u201cuncle\u201d to some who\u2019ve wandered from the faith. I know how much we\u2019ve grieved these situations, and I cannot imagine how much deeper the pain must be for biological parents who did their best to raise their offspring in a Christian home. As a pastor, I\u2019ve wept with more than one parent bearing this burden; at other times, I\u2019ve wept myself over folks I love. Sometimes, though, I\u2019ve watched as God graciously drew to Himself someone for whom I and others had been praying for years. The latter situation has always been worth the wait. My goal in this article is to help you not lose hope when you have unbelieving or prodigal loved ones\u2014or, if all your family members are believers, to help you encourage others who do face the struggle with loved ones. My thoughts are probably not revolutionary, but I trust that hearing them again will be important when your faith begins to struggle.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"When You\u2019ve (Almost) Lost Hope for Your Unbelieving or Prodigal Loved Ones | Church Answers","og_description":"I\u2019ve heard the story so many times lately that it seems hardly a week passes by without my hearing about this grief: believing loved ones praying for family members who\u2019ve never followed Christ or who have abandoned the faith of their upbringing. Sometimes it\u2019s parents praying for teen and adult children; at other times, it\u2019s teen and adult children still praying for older parents and grandparents. I know this anguish because I prayed for 36 years for my dad and 47 years for my mom before they both became Christ-followers. I would be lying if I said that I never once lost faith or doubted God in the decades that I prayed. I was a pastor for a number of those years, but even I wondered if God were ever going to answer my prayers. It felt like the more I prayed, the worse the situation seemed. My wife, Pam, and I don\u2019t have children, but we have been surrogate \u201cparents,\u201d \u201cgrandparents,\u201d \u201caunt\u201d and \u201cuncle\u201d to some who\u2019ve wandered from the faith. I know how much we\u2019ve grieved these situations, and I cannot imagine how much deeper the pain must be for biological parents who did their best to raise their offspring in a Christian home. 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Sometimes it\u2019s parents praying for teen and adult children; at other times, it\u2019s teen and adult children still praying for older parents and grandparents. I know this anguish because I prayed for 36 years for my dad and 47 years for my mom before they both became Christ-followers. I would be lying if I said that I never once lost faith or doubted God in the decades that I prayed. I was a pastor for a number of those years, but even I wondered if God were ever going to answer my prayers. It felt like the more I prayed, the worse the situation seemed. My wife, Pam, and I don\u2019t have children, but we have been surrogate \u201cparents,\u201d \u201cgrandparents,\u201d \u201caunt\u201d and \u201cuncle\u201d to some who\u2019ve wandered from the faith. I know how much we\u2019ve grieved these situations, and I cannot imagine how much deeper the pain must be for biological parents who did their best to raise their offspring in a Christian home. As a pastor, I\u2019ve wept with more than one parent bearing this burden; at other times, I\u2019ve wept myself over folks I love. Sometimes, though, I\u2019ve watched as God graciously drew to Himself someone for whom I and others had been praying for years. The latter situation has always been worth the wait. My goal in this article is to help you not lose hope when you have unbelieving or prodigal loved ones\u2014or, if all your family members are believers, to help you encourage others who do face the struggle with loved ones. My thoughts are probably not revolutionary, but I trust that hearing them again will be important when your faith begins to struggle.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/prodigal-son-hugs-his-own-father.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/prodigal-son-hugs-his-own-father.jpg","width":1200,"height":628,"caption":"Prodigal son hugs his own father"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/when-youve-almost-lost-hope-for-your-unbelieving-or-prodigal-loved-ones\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"When You\u2019ve (Almost) Lost Hope for Your Unbelieving or Prodigal Loved Ones"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/","name":"Church Answers","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/09e294734245d3978e67deffd6991c7f","name":"Chuck Lawless","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b99cf3a5686c69c6ee0fa69473f5a659bee7daaa31ff24217be46675fd10a5bd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b99cf3a5686c69c6ee0fa69473f5a659bee7daaa31ff24217be46675fd10a5bd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Chuck Lawless"},"description":"Dr. Chuck Lawless is a leading expert in spiritual consultation, discipleship and mentoring. As a former pastor, he understands the challenges ministry presents and works with Church Answers to provide advice and counsel for church leaders.","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/author\/clawless\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837645"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837653,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837645\/revisions\/837653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}