I would intercede and then later I would find out some of what was happening. And so one day I was praying and reading God's word and I was in 1st John.
1st John 5, 14 and 15. And it says, this is the context. This is the confidence which we have. before him. That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have. The request which we have asked from him. And I started... Looking into that, I'm going, am I praying according to God's will? Because I was trying to tell God how to do his job. And that doesn't work. God always has a way of dealing with people's hearts that we can't manipulate.
And so several, about two or three years went by. And we got a phone call. And he asked us to pray for him. And then a few more months went by. And we got a phone call. And you have to understand, he quit church. He quit God. We got a phone call. And he said, I was at Bible study the other night. And I have this question to ask you. And both Joe and I are going to ask you. Joe and I are going, he was at Bible study. And I just said, oh, God, slowly. Working in his life. And he's on his journey.
And so I call that verse my white knuckle verse. That when I get concerned. I need to start praying. God what is your will. For my son. For my grandchildren. For my children. And just hold on to that.
I think the most difficult time. The most difficult time of standing for our children was... has been since they became adults. Our oldest son went into the army... when he was 19. And then our youngest son, when he was 22, drove out to L.A., to make it as a writer in the swamp city of the whole nation, I think. And so during that time, I knew that everything that we had put in them, which at times it was... not really possible to say... everything that we had taught them as far as our values and, you know, what was wrong. What was right. They both went through a period of time that they, I knew they were not living right. So to speak. And that time was such a time of standing. You're tempted to. To try to speak into things. That they're not listening to you. And if you. If you aren't careful. You can push them away even more. By really trying to control. And that was one of the things that. I really realized one day that the Lord was dealing with me about was that I was trying to control the outcome instead of letting him control the outcome. And I remembered there was a time when they were both little and in grade school that I was making the bed one morning and the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and gave me a scripture that I did not know at all. And it's
Psalm 112:2, and it says that the children of the righteous will be mighty in the earth. And that was probably the scripture that I stood on the whole time that we were raising them was that no matter what it looked like, and boy, sometimes it did not look like they were they were mighty men indeed. But I stood on that scripture and I can say now we have a son that's going to be 50 years old in June. And then our other son is 44.
