4 Gifts for the Hard Journey, episode 143

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right

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here at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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And also help and hope for your own life journey.

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And that's what we have some more of today.

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For our previous two episodes, we explored the hard reality of the grief that comes from

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walking with a challenging child for months and years.

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I hope you captured some perspective and practice for your grief journey.

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This week and next, I have gifts for you.

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Gifts from God.

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They will give you what you need for all the twists and turns of your journey.

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So let's get into it.

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The first gift, and this you might never have thought of like this, is God Himself.

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He is available.

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He's the most important gift.

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Our gracious God has given us the best gift we could ever desire.

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He's given us Himself.

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He's given us Himself because He loves us.

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He didn't have to create us, but He wanted someone like Him that He could relate to.

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Psalm 139 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture.

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God tells us that He was there, forming us and our mother's womb, making the intricate

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parts of each of us.

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He gave us our physical characteristics, our personalities, our strengths and weaknesses.

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I've often asked why I couldn't have been a few inches taller and that He could have

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given me a little musical ability, but He's not answered that.

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But He reminds me, and I am grateful, that He gave me words and I write them and I speak

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them and I love to play games with them.

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He made each of us how He wanted us for the purposes that He had in mind for us.

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We weren't just randomly created.

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God was intricately involved and He had purpose.

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And yet He knew, even though He made us perfectly, He knew that free will would give us the opportunity

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to sin, to choose our own way.

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Now our Father sent His Son to redeem us, to forgive us, to restore our relationship

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with Him.

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Jesus came as one of us as a human, born as a baby, growing up.

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He was a perfect gift with a heart willing even to die for us.

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One of His names is Emanuel.

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Jesus is always with us.

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That's what Emanuel means.

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What a gift!

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But there's more.

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Jesus knew He would be leaving earth and returning to the Father.

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In John 14, He tells His disciples that He has an even better gift.

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The Holy Spirit, the Spirit, Father, Son, and Spirit, the Holy Spirit will come and live

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in the disciples and in us and give us everything they needed, everything we need to live for

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Him, everything we need to walk in this journey and not give up.

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That gift is still available to us, giving us all we need—comfort, wisdom, courage,

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peace—so much more.

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So it's like God has given us Himself as a bundle of gifts—of God the Father and

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the Son who died for us and the Spirit who fills us and gives us what we need day by

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day.

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But there's more.

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You know how much God loves you?

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Enough to send His Son to die in your place?

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He wants to share His love that He has for you, with you, for you to have, for your troubling

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child.

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And we talked about that a little last week, but I want to remind us that God loves our

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wanderers, our prodigals, as much as He loves us.

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And He will keep on pursuing Him or her, leaving the ninety-nine to go after the one lost sheep.

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He doesn't quit, and He will enable us to not give up as well.

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When you grasp how much God loves you, when it sinks in, remember that He has that same

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love for your prodigal.

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He's not going to quit loving them, no matter how bad they are.

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But here's the surprise.

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One of the main ways that God pours His love into and over your prodigal, your loved one,

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is through you.

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He can do it anyway that He wants, through other people, and He does, and just causing

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good things to happen, even though they don't deserve it.

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But the main way that His love is going to be conveyed to this person you love is through

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you.

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And to realize that, to me, has really helped me to change some of my responses and attitudes

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when Josh made life hard.

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And it was an important part for my husband to come to the fact that even though he really

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was weary of some of Josh's choices, that God loved him and he would love our son through

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us.

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What a privilege.

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Last week I told you about the picture I had of God standing over me with a huge fat

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when I asked what was in it.

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It was my love for Josh.

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I'm sharing it with you, he said.

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So no matter what he does, you are not dependent on your own love for him.

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You have that, but you also have my limitless, unconditional love for him.

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And then he told me even more about the love he shared with me and was available.

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Justice his love for me is unconditional.

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That is, I can't do anything to earn it or anything to lose it.

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There are no conditions on his love.

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And that is true as God kindly shares his love for our protocols.

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There are no conditions.

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We might have conditions before they can come back in our home or do some things they want.

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But we're tempted to say, no, you have to clean up.

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You have to quit this.

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And God said, that doesn't stop love.

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There may be boundaries and consequences, but what for sure, no matter what the love flows

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and they can experience that.

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If I am God's child, I am a vessel, a conduit of his love to anyone, to everyone, even and

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especially the one who breaks my heart.

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So God gave this himself.

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He's given us his love because ours is usually a little inadequate.

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He also gives us something else that we're maybe a little inadequate on and that is abundant

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mercy.

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Because of his great love, God is also overflowing with mercy.

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Now mercy is somewhat controversial for many people.

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They think people should get what they deserve or they will take advantage of your kindness.

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And that can happen because I tend to be on the merciful side.

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I've gotten a fair amount of kickback from people saying, you can't be that good to him.

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And I'm like, gee, God's been that good to me.

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And that helps me to choose to show mercy.

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Again, I'm not saying there are no boundaries and consequences.

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But my way to relate to my loved one has been to love unconditionally, to give mercy even

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though they don't deserve it.

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Ephesians 2.4 tells us that our God is rich in mercy.

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Because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even

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when we were dead in transgressions.

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And God makes that available to us.

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We're also told this is an amazing statement.

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Mercy triumphs over judgment.

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And I know there are questions around that.

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But I understand that mercy is a huge value to God.

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It's why Jesus came out of his love to extend mercy.

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Probably one of the greatest evidences of that mercy in Scripture is the woman caught

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in adultery.

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Jesus, when they brought her to him because they wanted him to follow the law, he could

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have.

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He would have done what the law said and she would have been stoned to death.

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That would have been right in their eyes.

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But that's not what he did.

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He said, Let those who are without sin throw the first stone.

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All you heard were stones dropping and feet shuffling away.

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And after all of those accusing her had dropped to stone, each one had Jesus asked her if

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no one had accused her.

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And she said, No, not one.

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And Jesus said, Neither do I go and sin no more.

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That is mercy.

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And then we find the greatest example as Jesus nailed to the cross, looks down on the people

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who are crucifying him and says, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're

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doing.

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That's what he says to us when it comes to our loved ones who break our hearts, who

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do really bad things sometimes.

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That doesn't mean there aren't going to be consequences.

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Sometimes you won't have to provide them God will.

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But he calls on us to show mercy because that's what he has done for us.

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Again, part of the journey that you're on that I've been on is to grasp the mercy as

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God has given us and his desire that we pass it on.

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He doesn't leave you on your own.

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And so if what's required and needed is mercy, he's got it for you.

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And he can give you wisdom on how to do it.

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And when it's the right thing, he wants to be merciful through you to the people that

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are hurting you.

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All right.

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So we've looked at God himself as a gift for our journey.

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Love unconditional love is a gift for our journey.

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Abundant mercy, more than most of us have capacity for, but God does, is available for

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us in walking with, living with those we love.

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And then finally, amazing grace.

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Hebrews 4.16 is one of my favorite verses.

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I've probably said that quite a few times over these podcasts.

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Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy

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and find grace to help us in our time of need.

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I like to picture it says God's throne of grace, the God sitting on his throne and it's

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made of grace, that he's operating out of grace and all that he does.

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It's just a throne, but it's made of grace because that's where he would be because he

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is grace.

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And so he says to you and to me, come on up.

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Let's talk.

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Let me show you what you can do here.

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Let me share with you the grace that I've poured out.

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Once again, he's saying, I haven't told you to be loving and merciful and gracious on

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your own.

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I'm giving you my love and my mercy and my grace to help you as you walk with the one

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that keeps breaking your heart.

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Not a grace giving God we have.

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I found that with people who break our hearts and cause us our pain.

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Our voices sometimes don't feel very full of grace.

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So I'm going to share with you the voice of grace.

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If we stop before we open our mouths to say something we might be sorry for later.

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Let your conversation, we're told, always be full of grace, seasoned with salt.

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So let me read to you the voice of grace.

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The verse it's based on, Colossians 1-6, let your conversation be always full of grace,

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seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

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How do we speak truth in love?

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How do we make sure our words are seasoned with grace?

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Here are eight steps to help you.

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First, wait.

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That's where the count of ten before you speak comes in.

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Or maybe twenty or thirty, however long it takes for you to speak with grace.

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Moderate.

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Moderate your voice.

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Speak slowly.

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Calmly.

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Gently.

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But firmly.

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Think.

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Will these words add fuel to the fire?

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That's what we say a lot, isn't it?

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We throw out what we feel and it just makes the fire burn brighter.

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And that's not what we want.

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Consider.

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Would you like someone to speak such words in that tone of voice to you?

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Recognize.

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The words you speak today can be part of your relationship with your prodigal for all the

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years to come.

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You think, oh no, that's not true.

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I've heard many young people say they can still hear words that their parents said to

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them that felt hurtful or put them down in some way.

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Teachers also.

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Realize your tone of voice can turn neutral words into destructive words.

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Remember you love this person.

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Pray.

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Make sure that you're filled with God's spirit.

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Ask him to govern your tongue, to release his love into your heart, to go to them.

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Also choose to be an instrument of God's grace.

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As I shared last week, one day after a hard conversation with my challenging protocol,

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God said, Judy, when you make mistakes with him, make them on the side of grace.

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So we've talked about four amazing gifts God gives us himself, all the Godhead, Father,

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Son, and Spirit, unconditional love, abundant mercy, amazing grace.

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But that's not all.

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There's more.

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Next week I have four more gifts from God for you to help you as you walk on this hard

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journey to sustain you through it all, to give you himself, to flow through you so that

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you can have the kind of influence on your loved one that you desire.

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God bless you.