Gifts I Have Requested from My Prodigal, episode 123

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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 when you love a prodigal podcast and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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Christmas is almost here.

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I love giving gifts, so I start early to learn what each one of my family might want.

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My husband sometimes asked and sometimes surprised me.

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Same with my girls.

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Our new son was ten at his first Christmas with us.

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My husband helped him buy a little something as a gift for me.

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In the years following, my prodigal seldom had money to buy Christmas gifts, so I usually

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got something small that I would like and let him give it to me.

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But as he moved into his teens and he still rarely had any money, I began to say, all

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I want for Christmas is, and it would be something that I hoped would happen in his life.

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Over the years, I requested some really treasured gifts from him.

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The first one was that he would know Jesus.

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Surely the first time I said, all I want for Christmas is for you to know Jesus, he wasn't

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so sure he could get me that or wanted to.

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I was confident that knowing Jesus would bring new life and new desires and purposes

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and choices.

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And a few years later, on a June 2nd, when he met his savior, it put him on a new journey.

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But he found it very challenging to stay on that path and his walk with God was truly

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a roller coaster.

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So instead of saying, all I want for Christmas is for you to know Jesus, I began to tell

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him that I loved him and that all I wanted for him to give me for Christmas was to say,

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I love you.

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Surely that request was also hard for him.

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He grew up for a number of years with his birth mom till he was eight, and though those were

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tumultuous years, he was loyal to her.

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He did love her.

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And when I became his mother, he couldn't call me mom or even consider loving me because

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that would be betraying his birth mom.

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And I understand that, but it still was hard.

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Over the years, my love for him grew deep, not because he earned it, but because God

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just kept growing it in me.

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And I wish that he could love me in return.

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It took him a dozen years to be able to give me that gift.

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First on a Mother's Day card and then on a phone call.

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Now he gives me that, I love you gift almost every day, saying, I love you on texts or

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calling me.

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It was a long time coming, but it's been a great gift.

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Another gift that I asked for was I want you for Christmas to begin to make choices that

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will lead to life and not death.

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I wanted him to choose friends who would be positive in his life, to abandon his drugs

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and drinking, to drive with care, to respect the girls he dated.

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This was a pretty big ask, but slowly, sporadically, one by one, all of these gifts were given.

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Sometimes he came to his senses and made better choices for a while.

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Other times, God intervened in miraculous ways.

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For example, he got arrested for a very small bad choice that had led to a night in jail.

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He was not happy.

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He was assigned community service for which he should have been very grateful.

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But when he failed to fulfill his required community service, he went back before the

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judge who put him on probation for two years.

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That was such a gift because his fear of actually going to jail kept him doing his community

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service and mostly caused him to behave better for the next two years.

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That was pretty much a miraculous intervention.

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Another one-time a friend offered to fly him to California to spend a week with a surfing

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pastor in his family.

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He got to teach kids how to surf.

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He loved surfing.

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He recommitted his life to Jesus and he said that that was the most fun he'd ever had.

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And that lasted for a while.

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He really sought to let Jesus lead his life.

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Not alas, I had to ask again for that gift of better choices for his life.

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Most recently, I asked him to truly surrender his life to Jesus.

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That was an even bigger ask and I consider the answer to that also miraculous.

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He adored his grandfather, his birth mother, stat.

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He had been the only man in his young life before he came to our family.

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He'd taught him to fish and to drive a boat.

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He took him to baseball and took him to surf.

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And a number of years ago, his grandfather's health began to fail.

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When it was clear he might be dying, Josh left his job, had told him, says, I'll see

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you later, and went to his grandfather's home and stayed with him for a full week, telling

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him over and over all that he had meant to him and how he wanted to honor him in some

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way.

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Now, we feared that when he lost his grandfather, he might make some pretty bad choices.

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That would be the norm.

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But instead, it turned out to be a turning point.

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He said, I'm going to make Papa proud.

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I'm going to live the way he would want me to live.

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So his desire to please his grandfather had turned out to be an answer to my prayers,

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the gift I wanted from him to really surrender his life.

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He has come so far, precious gifts that I've requested and that he's given and his promised

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to his Papa have brought him to a really good place.

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He is now hardworking, responsible, sober.

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He is good and kind.

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Has a wonderful wife and three awesome daughters.

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For these I rejoice and am so grateful.

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Yet I believe God still has greater work to do in him and through him.

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I don't know what it will look like, but I urge him as I implore myself, my other children

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and people I work with, don't settle for less than God's best.

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Let your life be all that God created you to be and do.

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That will happen as he surrenders his will to God, as we surrender our wills to him,

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as we commit to God's way and not our own, as we choose day by day to walk in that way.

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Our former prodigal assures me he is given that gift of surrender to the Lord and asks

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me to be patient as he and God work it out.

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Of course, even as I have requested these gifts, I know it is taking God working in

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him to produce the desired outcomes.

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So I ask him, but I also ask God, the giver of very good gifts.

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Which of you, scripture tells us in Matthew 7, if your son asks for bread, we'll give

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him a stone.

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Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake.

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If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much

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more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?

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And so in a sense, when I am asking my prodigal for the gifts that I would like, I am really

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asking God to do that work in his life.

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And it has taken a long time and there have been many ups and downs, many bad choices

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along with growing good ones.

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But God has done a miraculous work in his life.

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He's a different person than he was.

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Maybe my asking for those gifts spurred him on that path, but in actuality, God was working

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just as I asked him to.

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So ask for the gifts that will be meaningful to you and a good challenge for your prodigal.

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If you're comfortable doing that, if not, you don't have to do that.

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That's worked for me.

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But know that you can ask God, who is always working through his good gifts to accomplish

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good in your loved one's life and in your life.

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It's never just for one.

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He's always working on us, even as he's working on our prodigals.

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This Christmas, may God surprise you with some miraculous interventions, and may your

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prodigal surprise you with a gift that is exactly what you desire from him or her.

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God bless you.