When one’s conversion occurs as late in life as mine did—I was nearly forty years old at the time—one comes to have a special appreciation for the cleansing power of repentance, the obvious reason being that there is an awful lot of accumulated sin that needs to be washed away. My appreciation of repentance is crude and direct—God cast that immense mountain of sin into the deepest sea, as I watched in helpless but grateful awe.
But the older convert, once the initial wave of relief and astonishment has passed, must move on to another, harder truth—the sin is now gone, but the damage done by that sin lives on. We may now be forgiven for the disobedience, the lying, the thievery, the lust, the covetousness, and all the rest, but our personal landscape is still littered with the fallout of each and every one of those sins.
And so we stagger at the prospect of making restitution. Because of our late start in the race time is very short, and we are extremely weak. So much of the damage is beyond our ability to repair—money can be returned, and lies can be confessed, and offenses can be apologized for, but what of stolen opportunities that will never present themselves again, abdicated responsibilities that won’t be offered a second time, estranged friends and relatives who are long past listening? How can we hope to dig ourselves out of such a hole?
We all experience the predicament of the older convert. Every Christian is a disciple, and as we study and learn we undergo a continual series of conversions, from ignorance of biblical truth on a matter to an embracing of that truth. Coming to embrace a truth, though, does nothing to rectify the damage we did while laboring under the earlier falsehood, damage that is every bit as severe and as lasting as that done by a God-despising unbeliever. Again, restitution must be made. But how?
This predicament is particularly painful for fathers. How many of us, out of laziness, ignorance, or willful disobedience, have walked an unbiblical path while our children were young, failing to raise them fully in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? And even when a father comes to understand God’s requirements of him, and the depth of his failure to meet those requirements, and even when he come to regret his failures and to despair over them—he is still left with the fruit of his earlier unrighteousness, the child in whom he has worked diligently to instill rebellion.
The temptation here is great for a father to just declare failure and move on. The damage is done, the fault is his, and the tools he is given to address the situation are inadequate—the problem is one of the heart, and it is not given to us even to understand the heart, much less change it. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9) So again, restitution must be made. But how?
Jeremiah goes on to give us the answer. “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind.” (Jer 17:10a) God is in the business of understanding hearts, and of changing them (Ezek. 36:26). God will put His law in the minds of his children, and write it on their hearts. (Jer 31:33, 2 Cor 3:3)
It most likely won’t surprise you to hear that I’ve walked this path. I sowed the seeds of rebellion in my children’s hearts, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes by failing to act as I knew God would have me do. I watched in frustration as those seeds sprouted and grew, as I learned that the tools at hand—instruction, the rod, even prayer—were inadequate in themselves to the task of uprooting the plant. And I made the mistake of resorting to other, man-given tools, and ended up pouring fuel on the fire. I tried to change the hearts of my children, and I failed. And at times I wondered if it really was too late to fix things.
But at the same time, I did my best to be faithful. I grieved over old mistakes. As I became aware of new mistakes, I repented and turned from them as well. I finally recognized the futility of trying to change my children’s hearts myself and left that for God to do as He saw fit. I entrusted His children to Him, and tended to my own heart by setting out to be a faithfully obedient father, by disciplining them as God commands all fathers to do—not because discipline changes a child’s heart, but because He commands it.
I never expected that my efforts would be adequate to the task, but neither did I expect my children to take the full brunt of my sin. We are told that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). And that “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” (Jer 17:10a)
I repented and believed, trusted and obeyed, knowing that this is what God called me to do. I became the father that God would have me be; I gave them training that there was no earthly reason for them to heed, and instructions I had no reason to expect them to obey. And my own heart brimmed with joy and gratitude as God began to turn their hearts, and they began to listen, and they began to obey.
Fathers, never think that just because you didn’t begin the race well, you are entitled to sit it out. You are not called to win the race but to run it. Repent of your disobedience, and determine today that you will become the father that God commands, the father your children desperately need. Put aside your hopelessness and trust in the God of hope. Leave it in His hands as to how and when He will use your obedience in the good work He is doing in them. Rest assured that He will reward you according to your conduct, and that the reward will be abundant.