Gifts 4-Giving In, Giving Thanks, episode 91

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. Today we wrap up our wilderness exploration looking for treasured gifts with two especially helpful gifts. Be sure to jot down any ideas you want to try in your wilderness journey so you don't forget. I always forget if I don't write it down. I am a strong-willed, stubborn person.

0:42 From the beginning, just ask my family. They've agreed easily. When I came to Christ at age 15, I made a purposeful exchange. I received Christ and His wonderful gift of salvation and eternal life. But I also said, God, I choose your way, not mine. I thought it was settled until the next day when I discovered there was something that I didn't agree with, and I had to stop and choose God's way instead of mine. And I realized I would be making this choice for the rest of my life.

1:27 My way or God's way? Sometimes, many times a day. And so it has been. Apparently my stubborn self-will is deeply ingrained. Many times God has waited patiently for me to open my hands to let go of my way. Sometimes He has had to apply a small crowbar to my clenched fists to precipitate surrender. Loving a prodigal revealed the depth of my desire to have my own way. My appeals to God often demanded or cajoled or bartered.

2:09 Surely He would intervene and rescue my son and us from this agonizing journey. God listened and received my prayers with love and grace. Then He reminded me that He had a better way. The children of Israel had a similar problem. They were stubborn and self-willed. In Isaiah 30, the Lord Himself lays out a litany of their refusal to choose His way, of their ongoing rebellion, of their rejection of His plans. And then He says these amazing words, In repentance and rest you shall be saved.

2:54 In quietness and trust is your strength. But you were not willing. Not willing. Yes, that applied to my prodigal, my rebellious loved one. But I believe in this case, God is speaking directly to me. I so easily think that I know what is best. I still want God to do it my way. What I think will be the less painful way, the easiest way. I don't want to live with this pain. I don't want to lose my child. I want to be free from the fear and anxiety and hopelessness.

3:39 But I want to do it my way. My fingers are tightly clasped. Surrender seems unacceptable. But my Father, our Lord, offers rest and repentance, quietness and strength, which are just what I need for this journey. Slowly I have learned God's way is really better than my way. He is patient and determined. He wants me to become the person He designed me to be. He wants me to be ready to do the good works He has prepared for me.

4:25 And just perhaps this love prodigal who has taken me where I did not want to go, who has revealed my own stubbornness, is the means by which God will accomplish His good purposes in me. Am I willing? Are you willing? Have you thought about the fact that this prodigal journey is as much about you as it is about your loved one? It took me a while to learn that. I promise you, opening your hands, surrendering, saying, yes, I'm willing, Lord, will bring amazing results in your life and probably in the life of your prodigal as well.

5:10 So the final gift that I want to talk about to be found in this wilderness that we're in is the gift of gratitude. You know, the same has been true with all my children and now my grandchildren. Whenever someone does something for a child, the parent says, what do you say? The correct answer, of course, is thank you. We humans aren't naturally grateful. It takes years of training for us to remember to say thank you when someone is kind or helpful or generous to us.

5:53 We've just gone through a list of six amazing gifts that God has given us through our prodigals. Mercy, love, grace, prayer, perseverance, surrender, making your prodigal and mine the perfect gift for us because God does wonderful work in our lives through this journey. So isn't it right to say thank you to the giver of this magnificent gift? Although it's challenging, it's really true. Our prodigal is a gift to us and gratitude becomes our seventh gift in the wilderness.

6:39 God has observed, however, that we are just like children. He knows he must remind us often to say thank you. But he takes it a lot further. He says we are to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. All circumstances. And there we have it. The difficult command we have pondered when we talked about rest and again later when we talked about trust. He wants us to thank him all the time in every circumstance. We've already acknowledged that thanking him is easy when we like the circumstances of our lives, when we are healthy or have a good job, delight in loving relationships, have happy children, feel accepted and loved, experience success, receive a desired surprise.

7:40 At that time, the key is just to remember God is the giver of all good things and to express our gratitude. But when health is threatened, a job is lost, a relationship is broken, children are making destructive choices, loneliness and rejection abound, success is elusive and surprises are not the desired ones. How? How can we say thank you, Lord? But God asks us to. So we open ourselves to learn how this is possible, how we can be motivated to even try thankfulness in hard times.

8:25 I have previously shared three wonderful things that happen when I say thank you, Lord. My focus changes, my trust expands and doors open. This is so important for our survival and even peace in the prodigal wilderness that I want to further, briefly develop each of these thoughts. First, my focus changes to God himself. Not just looking at the problem, the thing that I don't like, the bad decisions that our prodigals make. Giving thanks acknowledges to God that he is God and he is good.

9:12 Now, he knows that, but we need to be reminded of it. When life's circumstances are challenging and yet I choose to say thank you, Lord, I am saying to my heavenly Father, I know you are God. I am recognizing that he is El Elyon, the Most High God. He is El Shaddai, the Almighty. He is sovereign and over all and in control. But when life seems unfair or painful, confusing, scary, it is also important to remember that he is good.

9:52 Just look at these assurances of God's goodness. From Jeremiah 32, it says, I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will never stop doing good to them. And I will inspire them to fear me, to respect me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul. Is that a promise? Wow! I'll never stop doing you good and your prodigal.

10:33 Here's another verse from Psalm 34. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. And another Psalm 100, for the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. And in Psalm 145, the Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all that he has made. He has compassion on you and me and on those we love.

11:13 So first of all, I just get a bigger picture of God when I recognize that he is God and he is good. And saying thank you is acknowledging that. Second, my trust expands. Giving thanks expresses trust in God. As we increasingly experience God's godness and his goodness, we find our hearts and minds are more and more able to trust him. Fear, we have fear, don't we? Of all the uncertainties and concerns of life erodes our trust. We find it harder to believe that God loves us and wants good for us.

11:58 Learning to say thank you, even amidst pain and loss, restores our trust. We can go forward with confidence that we know who holds our future. And he knows, he cares, and he is able in every situation. So we recognize that God is God and he is good. That causes my trust in him to grow. And then this amazing thing happens. It's like that is a key to open doors for God to work. Giving thanks opens opportunities for God to accomplish his heart's desires.

12:45 For me, for you, for your prodigal, I found that when hard circumstances restrain my gratitude, it's as though I'm holding tightly to the key to my heart and the key to my circumstances. But when I thank God, even when I don't feel thankful, it is like I hand him the key to the locked door. With that thank you key, he opens my eyes to begin to see the good that he is doing. Small though it may appear at first, he opens my mind to accept that his goodness will prevail over time, if not immediately.

13:31 And that key opens my heart to restore trust that this all-powerful God is truly acting in love and compassion for me. These three wonderful things have happened more and more frequently as I have intentionally practiced thanking God, as I have endeavored to make it a habit to grow a truly grateful heart. I've worked on it over the years in everything I do, wherever I am, with whomever is watching. I know some of this attitude has transferred to my children, which just sends my heart soaring.

14:17 One of my favorite examples of this is the following story about our prodigal. When our son joined our family at almost 10 years old, life had dealt him some really hard blows. Gratitude was not in him. We worked hard to teach him gratitude in general and especially toward God, even in hard times. It took a while, but slowly thanks became part of his vocabulary and even resided in his heart. For many years, Josh worked at landscaping and once, while he was trimming a hedge by a fence with a chainsaw, the saw hit the fence and kicked back against his head, barely missing his eye and leaving a pretty nasty gash.

15:13 It turned out it wasn't very deep and he was going to be okay. When I got to the hospital and asked how he was, he said, it hurts a lot, especially when they were cleaning it out. But the first thing I did after I cut my head open was call 911. And the next thing I did was say, thank you, Lord. Wow, it really was catching to be able to give thanks in everything and to see your children, even your prodigal, began to grab hold of that and practice it.

15:53 Again, I thank God for the gift of my prodigal. I have learned so much through him and through this journey. I hope you will join me in saying it for your loved one. Thank you, God, for the incredible gift you have given me in my prodigal, in my loved one. Can you do that? Can you thank God for this journey? Let me ask you some questions. You might want to jot down your answers or tell Siri to.

16:34 How might the gift of surrender, your surrender to God, ease your journey in the wilderness of loving a prodigal? How would giving in to God and believing that he's good and that he really is God and he loves you, how would that help your journey with your loved one? When did you realize that God's purposes for your prodigal were equally about you or have you yet? Let me tell you, it's true. Your prodigal, God is paying attention to and caring for and reaching out to, but he's using this wilderness journey to do a great work in your heart and mind and life.

17:23 Can you name some of the ways that your loved one has been a gift to you? I hope you can. Think through. Look at what we've talked about. What could help you say thank you more consistently? I pray that God will really help you to trust that he is truly God and truly good and totally committed to you and your loved one with his goodness and love and compassion and that you'll be able to thank him. God bless you.