Gifts I Have Requested from My Prodigal, episode 123

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here when you love a prodigal podcast and also help and hope for your own life journey. Christmas is almost here. I love giving gifts, so I start early to learn what each one of my family might want. My husband sometimes asked and sometimes surprised me. Same with my girls. Our new son was ten at his first Christmas with us. My husband helped him buy a little something as a gift for me.

0:43 In the years following, my prodigal seldom had money to buy Christmas gifts, so I usually got something small that I would like and let him give it to me. But as he moved into his teens and he still rarely had any money, I began to say, all I want for Christmas is, and it would be something that I hoped would happen in his life. Over the years, I requested some really treasured gifts from him. The first one was that he would know Jesus. Surely the first time I said, all I want for Christmas is for you to know Jesus, he wasn't so sure he could get me that or wanted to.

1:31 I was confident that knowing Jesus would bring new life and new desires and purposes and choices. And a few years later, on a June 2nd, when he met his savior, it put him on a new journey. But he found it very challenging to stay on that path and his walk with God was truly a roller coaster. So instead of saying, all I want for Christmas is for you to know Jesus, I began to tell him that I loved him and that all I wanted for him to give me for Christmas was to say, I love you.

2:15 Surely that request was also hard for him. He grew up for a number of years with his birth mom till he was eight, and though those were tumultuous years, he was loyal to her. He did love her. And when I became his mother, he couldn't call me mom or even consider loving me because that would be betraying his birth mom. And I understand that, but it still was hard. Over the years, my love for him grew deep, not because he earned it, but because God just kept growing it in me.

2:56 And I wish that he could love me in return. It took him a dozen years to be able to give me that gift. First on a Mother's Day card and then on a phone call. Now he gives me that, I love you gift almost every day, saying, I love you on texts or calling me. It was a long time coming, but it's been a great gift. Another gift that I asked for was I want you for Christmas to begin to make choices that will lead to life and not death.

3:36 I wanted him to choose friends who would be positive in his life, to abandon his drugs and drinking, to drive with care, to respect the girls he dated. This was a pretty big ask, but slowly, sporadically, one by one, all of these gifts were given. Sometimes he came to his senses and made better choices for a while. Other times, God intervened in miraculous ways. For example, he got arrested for a very small bad choice that had led to a night in jail.

4:17 He was not happy. He was assigned community service for which he should have been very grateful. But when he failed to fulfill his required community service, he went back before the judge who put him on probation for two years. That was such a gift because his fear of actually going to jail kept him doing his community service and mostly caused him to behave better for the next two years. That was pretty much a miraculous intervention. Another one-time a friend offered to fly him to California to spend a week with a surfing pastor in his family.

5:04 He got to teach kids how to surf. He loved surfing. He recommitted his life to Jesus and he said that that was the most fun he'd ever had. And that lasted for a while. He really sought to let Jesus lead his life. Not alas, I had to ask again for that gift of better choices for his life. Most recently, I asked him to truly surrender his life to Jesus. That was an even bigger ask and I consider the answer to that also miraculous. He adored his grandfather, his birth mother, stat.

5:47 He had been the only man in his young life before he came to our family. He'd taught him to fish and to drive a boat. He took him to baseball and took him to surf. And a number of years ago, his grandfather's health began to fail. When it was clear he might be dying, Josh left his job, had told him, says, I'll see you later, and went to his grandfather's home and stayed with him for a full week, telling him over and over all that he had meant to him and how he wanted to honor him in some way.

6:28 Now, we feared that when he lost his grandfather, he might make some pretty bad choices. That would be the norm. But instead, it turned out to be a turning point. He said, I'm going to make Papa proud. I'm going to live the way he would want me to live. So his desire to please his grandfather had turned out to be an answer to my prayers, the gift I wanted from him to really surrender his life. He has come so far, precious gifts that I've requested and that he's given and his promised to his Papa have brought him to a really good place.

7:15 He is now hardworking, responsible, sober. He is good and kind. Has a wonderful wife and three awesome daughters. For these I rejoice and am so grateful. Yet I believe God still has greater work to do in him and through him. I don't know what it will look like, but I urge him as I implore myself, my other children and people I work with, don't settle for less than God's best. Let your life be all that God created you to be and do. That will happen as he surrenders his will to God, as we surrender our wills to him, as we commit to God's way and not our own, as we choose day by day to walk in that way.

8:11 Our former prodigal assures me he is given that gift of surrender to the Lord and asks me to be patient as he and God work it out. Of course, even as I have requested these gifts, I know it is taking God working in him to produce the desired outcomes. So I ask him, but I also ask God, the giver of very good gifts. Which of you, scripture tells us in Matthew 7, if your son asks for bread, we'll give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake.

8:52 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? And so in a sense, when I am asking my prodigal for the gifts that I would like, I am really asking God to do that work in his life. And it has taken a long time and there have been many ups and downs, many bad choices along with growing good ones. But God has done a miraculous work in his life. He's a different person than he was. Maybe my asking for those gifts spurred him on that path, but in actuality, God was working just as I asked him to.

9:42 So ask for the gifts that will be meaningful to you and a good challenge for your prodigal. If you're comfortable doing that, if not, you don't have to do that. That's worked for me. But know that you can ask God, who is always working through his good gifts to accomplish good in your loved one's life and in your life. It's never just for one. He's always working on us, even as he's working on our prodigals. This Christmas, may God surprise you with some miraculous interventions, and may your prodigal surprise you with a gift that is exactly what you desire from him or her.

10:28 God bless you.