Blessing Your Prodigal, episode 81

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal, and also help and hope for your own life journey. Welcome back! How have you done at setting aside your idols and putting the Lord where he belongs on the throne of your life? Today, be sure as you listen to jot down what you want to do in response to what we're talking about. Let me tell you a story. As our son continued to live with us during his roller coaster early 20s, sometimes making good choices, more often not, we set some clear boundaries, summarizing he needed to respect us and our home and our values and be a contributing member of the family.

1:00 After several months of not abiding by these boundaries, his father said, Josh, you need to find a job and a place to live. So he ended up moving in with a friend, and he slept on their couch, I don't know, for at least six months. He found occasional work, but his friend grew tired of feeding him. So occasionally when I was grocery shopping, I chose to bless him with some food that I knew he would like for the next week. He didn't deserve it or earn it, but I chose to bless him, and he was grateful.

1:44 Our God loves to bless his children, just like his children, you and me, as well as our prodigals. You will find blessings throughout Scripture that talk about the way he loves to bless. And this one is called the priestly blessing, and it's one of the most known. So let me just remind us of this blessing. Scripture says, God said, he'd said this to Moses, may the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.

2:26 May the Lord show you his favor and give you peace. So it's no surprise that our God also wants us to be channels of his blessing to others. And for us to choose to bless the people in our lives, whether it's our family or friends or neighbors or even enemies, somebody who might be against us, and of course, our loved wanderers. We are God's image to the world that desperately needs him. We reflect what he is like, and God has sent us out to reveal himself.

3:09 And in one of those ways is to be a blessing and to bless people. Scripture is filled with promises and admonitions of blessing. Here are just a few of the many, many evidences of God's blessing and desire to bless. This one is from Isaiah 44. I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. That's pretty straightforward.

3:50 In Ephesians 1, praise be to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. If we know him, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing that's available already. In Romans, Paul tells us, bless those who persecute you. Who persecutes us the most? Probably not intentionally maybe, but our prodigals. He says, Paul goes on and says, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.

4:35 And then in 2 Corinthians, he says, and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. I think he covers it all in that verse. Blessing is ours. What is a blessing? I mean, seriously, what does that mean? In the South, we know it's almost a sarcasm. Bless your heart, honey. And if someone sneezes, well, we will say, God bless you.

5:17 But to bless is to do good to or express good wishes or offer prayer to God for someone's welfare and benefit. What a wonderful thing to ask for good to happen in another's life. That's what a blessing is, is to wish on them through the Lord who can bless good in their lives. One of the best ways to see how to bless someone or many someones is to recall what has blessed you. If what someone did for you or didn't do to you or said to you blessed you, can you see how doing or saying the same kinds of things could bless others, especially your prodigal?

6:11 We often bless others when we meet a need or do a favor or sit and listen. I remember one day when I was really angry at my prodigal. I thought, all right, I am going to bless him. And I chose to do that by going and getting all his laundry in his room and taking it to the machine. And as I dropped each piece of clothing into the machine, one by one, I said, I bless you, Josh. If you've listened a long time, you've probably heard me tell that story because it was a very significant one for him as well as for me.

6:56 To be able to do a tangible blessing to him and he appreciated it. Those are beautiful blessings that we can do in action. And there are ways we can bless our loved ones, our prodigals, by the things we do for them that aren't called for, that they didn't even think to ask. We can act a blessing out. But we can also do it with our lips, with our words. We can speak a blessing. We can pray a blessing. Or if you don't want to say it aloud, you can write it out for them.

7:37 But that is a really helpful way to be specific in a way to bless them. But it's still how do you do it? How do you come up with the words to bless them? Well, because Scripture is full of blessings and promises, God's given us all we need to really speak blessing to our loved ones. So let me help a little here. 15 years in a prodigal wilderness taught me a lot about giving and speaking blessings to our wanderer. The Word of God gives me so many ways to do it. When I read Scripture, sometimes the words just jump out at me and say, that is just what our son needs.

8:23 Or maybe someone else, maybe another family member or a friend going through a hard time. Or perhaps I think someone has a need like for patience or hope or wisdom or forgiveness. And I look in Scripture for what I can pray for that person. And I often turn that Scripture into a blessing. How does that work? Well, let me share with you some examples of how I have activated God's Word into simple blessings. And then you're going to get to do it. So say that your prodigal has resisted Christ's invitation over and over.

9:09 You could bless them from Ephesians 1, 18, which says, I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called. And so you might take that thought and you might bless them with these words. May the eyes of your heart be enlightened to truly know him, to truly know Jesus, to the Father, however you would like. But take the promise of that Scripture and turn it into a blessing. The word may is the beginning of anything you want that you want to turn into a blessing.

9:57 Or when it appears that all hope is gone for your loved one, you've really given up because they seem to have given up. This Scripture from Jeremiah 24 is one of my very favorites of all. It would bless you as well as your prodigal. Jeremiah says that God says, I will watch over and care for them and I will bring them back here again. He's talking about the children of Israel who have been in captivity for 70 years, but he's talking to us too.

10:38 I will build them up and not tear them down. Sometimes I think we do more tearing them down than building them up, but that's not what God says. Then he says, I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them hearts that recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly. Now, as you listen to me read that verse, I hope your heart just was, wow, what an incredible word from God.

11:19 It's so powerful. I'm going to read it again and then I'll just read the short blessing that I wrote from that. Remember, he says, I will watch over and care for them and I will bring them back again. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them hearts that recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly. So the little blessing I wrote, may you be built up, not torn down, planted, not uprooted.

12:06 May you return to God with all your heart. Isn't that a beautiful blessing? So here's another. Perhaps a loved one or friend has had some hard days or your prodigal has. You read this in Jeremiah 32-40. And I love this too. I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will never stop doing good for them. I love it. You could write or speak or pray a blessing over your loved one. May you know that it gives God joy to always do good to you.

12:53 Here's one. So if someone that you care about has experienced something painful, even traumatic, a great loss in their life, you might claim Joel 225 for them. I will repay you for the years that the locusts have eaten. So your loved one, by their own choice even, has really suffered a lot of loss. And you're going to say, we're not going to lose those years. And here's a simple blessing. May all the days and years of your life stolen by the evil one be restored.

13:34 What a powerful blessing. And for that person who feels like a failure with no real future, consider 1 Corinthians 2-9. What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him. And so you might bless them with these words. May God open your eyes and ears to see and hear what God has prepared for you. One of my favorites is in Hosea 11-4.

14:17 He says, I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them. I love the picture of God's loving care. And a blessing might read like this. May you feel cords of loving kindness as the Father bends down to feed you. That might be really powerful for a hungry prodigal. Here's one more, and then I'm going to kind of turn it to you.

14:58 If your prodigal is trying to make better choices, this could be an encouraging verse. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. So I might say this to them. May the light of your life shine brightly into the darkness around you. Let me give you a thought on that. Our son, since he has turned around and come back to us and to the Lord and making good choices in his life, he's always wanted his life to count, but he doesn't see how he could be very useful.

15:45 And so he takes great joy in this podcast and in my book and the other ways that I seek to encourage people who have a prodigal. And so for him, he loves that his light is shining through the stories I tell about him. And that could be true for your prodigal as well. Now, you can always just look at scripture and pray that verse for your loved one. But I love turning those words into blessings. And so I encourage you to make blessing people one of your beautiful reflections of the image of God in you.

16:28 So that when people look at you and hear what you say and the way you treat people, they're going to say, that reminds me of God because you bless through your words and through your life. Speaking, writing or praying blessings over your wanderer will bless you and them. So I hope you noted some of the ways that you can apply this. In today's show notes, I have added some links that will help you even more. So go there and click on and I have a whole booklet of ways to do that.

17:08 So make sure you don't miss out on those resources. So what about you? Who can you bless today? And perhaps you want to take one of the scriptures I mentioned or something you've been reading in the scripture and see how God could use that to bless you, but then for you to bless others as well. And you can bless me and many others by telling your friends about this podcast, by subscribing to it or rating it or even writing a review. I would be very grateful and blessed.

17:50 God bless you.