Is there someone you love who is a Christian, but who has turned their back on the Lord? It may be they drifted away through misplaced priorities (Romans 12:2; Matthew 6:24). Or, it may be they deliberately walked away, choosing a life of sin over a life with the Lord (2 Peter 2:20-22). However it may have happened, we are left wondering, “What can we do to help them find their way back to God?” Knowing what God’s word says about falling away, we are scared for our loved one’s spiritual condition. And while we know our prayers can make a difference (James 5:16), we wonder what we should pray for or how we should pray.

I have often felt so overcome with my situation, that I haven’t known what I should ask from God (Romans 8:26-27). Someone I love dearly, my child, has walked very far away from the Lord. I wrote about my pain in a post a couple of years ago that you can read here. I pray for him daily and have identified six things that I include in my prayers.

When I pray, these are my requests:

1. I pray for God to give him time to repent. I know that life is fragile and none of us have a guarantee of tomorrow (James 4:14). I also know that the Lord will come as a “thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). I pray that my son’s life will be spared long enough so that there is time to be restored.
2.  I pray that God will bring people into his life that can influence him, when maybe I cannot. While nothing I have said has made a difference, I pray that there are people who can influence and restore my son (Galatians 6:1).
3. I pray that I will be willing to do whatever it takes to bring him back. It may be that I need to seek wisdom (James 1:5) and have a difficult conversation with him. It may be that I need to have the strength and fortitude to practice discipline as God commands us to do (1 Corinthians 5:4-5, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-14).
4. I pray that God will do whatever is necessary in His providence to bring him back. Our society places high value on health, wealth, and prosperity. Sickness, poverty, and suffering are considered negative and undesirable. However, that is a shortsighted perspective. While I would never wish for unpleasant things to happen to anyone, if God through His providence can shape events that bring my my child back, I will ask God for it (Romans 8:28).
5. I pray that if and when he does come back, I will have a heart that forgives. When my child fell away, there were many conversations in hopes of restoration. Some of those conversations included hurtful words. There were sinful actions that caused our family tremendous grief and embarrassment.  If and when repentance occurs, I must get past the hurt feelings and grief to have a heart open to forgiveness and restoration of our relationship (Matthew 6:14). Forgiveness is difficult, but essential for my own salvation and so that my loved one won’t be swallowed up in sorrow (2 Corinthians 2:7).
6. I pray that God will help me use what I have experienced to help someone else. Until I lost a loved one, I didn’t understand the depth of pain and grief that many others have experienced. I now pray that I can use my grief to help others coping with the loss of a loved one. I also pray that I will be given opportunities to reach out and restore others who have left the faith (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

There are situations that seem hopeless. Yet I know that with God, nothing is impossible (Mark 10:27). I don’t know if, how, or when my child will return to the Lord and a restored relationship with our family. What I do know is that I will never stop loving my son and I will never cease to pray for the salvation of his soul.