By Adam Griffin
Our family is in a stage where our youngest son has so much confidence in our love for him that if he finds me sitting on the couch he will, with a running start, leap onto me and expect to be welcomed onto my lap with open arms. Sometimes I don’t even see him coming. He has faith that my love for him is so secure that he doesn’t need to ask. He trusts that I’ll catch him. He trusts that he’s safe with me. He assumes he is wanted. And he is not wrong. In fact, my love for him is so sincere and so substantial and so steadfast that I can’t imagine there will ever be a day when I wouldn’t delight to embrace him and protect him.
The remedy to so many of our struggles as parents is found in having faith that we can jump into the arms of God and we will be welcome and secure. Assuming we are wanted by God changes our entire outlook on life. If I, an imperfect father, can so thoroughly delight in embracing and protecting my child, how much more sincere, substantial, and steadfast must the love of our perfect Heavenly Father be for us.
Being Home Free
The expression “home free” refers to the profound relief, elation, and liberation that comes from knowing that nothing can defeat you. It’s the presumption of invincibility that comes from being convinced that there is nobody that can come between you and your finish line. The race is already won. Your success is certain.
Being home free does not necessarily mean being completely done, or that you are finished working. There might still be some difficult tasks ahead, even some things you don’t want to do. Rather, what it means is that there is nothing left that is strong enough to take your victory away from you. Triumph is a foregone conclusion.
There’s a point on an oak tree that a squirrel can scurry up to where it is out of reach of any sprinting, leaping dog. Escape to that height, and the squirrel is home free. There’s a depth a fish can plunge to where a diving eagle can’t snatch it. Make it to that depth, and the fish is home free.
Knowing you’re home free is knowing you can’t lose.
For the Christian, being home free is the relief, elation, and freedom that comes from having heard and trusted the gospel. It’s the result of faith that we are safe in the arms of God. It’s an invincible contentment that comes from believing the promises of God for those who trust in Christ. For a Christian, being home free is the absolute assurance we possess that while we were still sinners Christ died for us and because of His finished work on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, and the salvation extended to us who trust in Him, we are forgiven, justified, and cleansed from all unrighteousness. We are secure. Fortified. Cherished. Home free.
If you are a Christian, you have been now-and-forever home free since the moment you joined the family of God. As you exhaled your last breath as an unsaved soul and took your first breath as a saint you were irrevocably liberated. Born again. Home free.
Oh, what joy fills the heart of the parent who is home free and knows it! It is a transcendent relief. Even death has lost its sting. Nothing can take away the victory and love the Christ-follower has been given in Christ Jesus. This is the victory we so eagerly invite our kids to see and plead with God to grant to our whole household.
I want us to parent genuinely convinced that because of the grace of God, we are home free. We are running in a race that’s already been won.
That gospel truth should bring you relief.
Shalak it All
Jesus prays for you in John 17 and in that prayer we glimpse his description of the Father’s love. In verse 23 Jesus asks, “that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” What if you genuinely believed that God the Father feels about you the way he feels about Jesus Christ?
How welcome are you in His presence? How cherished are you?
There is a relief for every struggle found in knowing and believing that we are safe with God and that God wants us close. He says, “come to me” and what God says, He means.
He can even cultivate our trust in His love and restore us after our mistakes. Just look at Peter and the two miraculous catches of fish. In Luke 5, soon after he first meets Jesus, Peter sees Him perform the first miraculous catch of fish. After witnessing the power of Christ, Peter drops to his knees and tells Jesus to get away from him. He wants Jesus to go away because Peter sees himself as a very sinful man and therefore he assumes a man like him will be unwanted. Then they spend the next three years in close proximity and after three years of relationship with Jesus, when Peter sees Jesus perform a similar miracle in John 21, things are different.
Even soon after Peter made his most notorious mistakes, publicly denying Jesus multiple times shortly after he swore he’d never abandon him – after all that – for some reason Peter no longer wants Jesus to go away. Peter has changed. His fear is gone. Peter actually can’t wait to be close to Jesus. Since he is in the boat with the miraculous catch and Jesus is on the shore a hundred yards away, he dives into the water to get to Jesus as soon as possible. Peter is no less sinful than when he and Jesus first met in Luke 5, but even in his sin, he now assumes that he is wanted by and welcome with God. He trusts Jesus. He has faith that he will be comforted and secure with Christ.
Peter is not wrong. Jesus does not condemn and reject Peter when he comes to Him. Jesus restores him. They walk by each other and that bears fruit in Peter’s life.
That same Peter who races to see Christ after his worst public mistakes reminds us that we can cast all our burdens onto God. As a Christian parent you get to, “cast all your anxieties on Him who cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7) Did you hear that? All your anxieties. All your burdens. All your worries. Because He cares for you, everything that weighs you down can be cast from you to Him.
Peter is quoting Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you.” The Hebrew word for “cast” is “shalak”. It means to throw, hurl, or chuck something. It’s a great word.
Imagine getting to ball up all of your anxiety, bitterness, exhaustion, frustration, shame, and stress into a massive ugly ball of weighty negativity and then getting to “shalak” it! Chuck it all off a cliff. Even when you don’t feel strong enough to lift it, you have permission just to drop it. You are actually invited to fling your burdens at the feet of God. Your God wants to unburden you. Instead of holding on to all of that mess, you get to throw it all off. And that’s not all. Regarding all of those struggles, you aren’t only unburdened, you are offered a gift in exchange.
You cast off anxiety and you cling to the Prince of Peace, like a beloved child clings to their mother, and walking by Him will bear peace in your life. You chuck your bitterness and you cling to the kindness of God and walking with Him will grow kindness in your heart. You hurl down all of the undue stresses you feel and you cling to God who loves you, and walking by Him will cultivate love in your heart. You let go of all of your inadequacy and you cling to the goodness of God and walking by Him will develop goodness in you.
What an exchange. Now that is serious freedom.
Content taken from Good News for Parents by Adam Griffin, ©2025. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
