DASHING
MOM’S HOPES

Topics: Dashed Hopes; Dependence on God; Despair; God as Father; Grace; Helplessness; Rebellion

References: Psalm 118:5; Luke 18:9–14; Hebrews 4:16

A teenage son rebelled against his parents and against God. For four years he protested his guilt and made innumerable promises to “straighten up.” But each excuse was unjustified, and each promise was broken.

So much pain, embarrassment, and discouragement had been inflicted on these parents that the mother’s heart hardened against her own child. What melted it again was a cry of desperation.

After another escapade, followed by more protests of innocence from the son, the mother walked away. As the young man sat alone on the sofa in the family room, he began to leaf through a family photo album. The pictures of better and happier days filled him with increasing emotion. He called his mother back into the room to look at one picture, which showed him as a young child, whom his mother smiled at in approval.

The teen said, “When I see this, I understand why you can’t love me anymore. In the picture, hope fills your eyes as you look down at your little boy. But I dashed all your hopes, Mom. Please forgive me for dashing all your hopes.”

The mother’s hardness broke, and she embraced her son in love. What moved her were neither protests of innocence nor fresh promises to do better. Rather, she was moved by his absolute desperation.

The Bible tells us that is also what moves God.

—Bryan Chapell, Holiness by Grace (Crossway, 2001)