God is Always at Work, episode 20 (rebroadcast)

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Do you love a prodigal? Do you feel like you are lost in a scary and endless wilderness?

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Welcome to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. I am Judy Douglass, and I spent more than 15

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years in that wilderness. I believe together we will discover help and hope for your journey.

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He's building his testimony. My friend Diane was a faithful prayer warrior on behalf of

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our son. I used to pass her on the way to my office, and she always asked how he was

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doing. On the days that there were more bad choices and more reasons to despair, she often

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responded, He's building his testimony. With those words, God kept reminding me of

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this important truth from Jesus. My Father is always at his work to this very day, and

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I too am working. When our loved one is doing destructive things, whether from childish

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thinking, lack of thinking, trauma response, gratifying the flesh, evil intent, or from

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just being foolish, our tendency is often to sigh or cry or despair. Yet God is at work

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even in all this. He is at work in our prodigals. He is at work in these circumstances, and

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he is at work in us. I hope you're hearing this. I've said it over and over. This is

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not just about your loved one who's making bad choices. Even as God works on them, he's

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always working on us as well, out of his love and grace.

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One of my favorite verses assures me that God was intentional when he made each one

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of us, including our loved ones, designing us perfectly for the plans he has created

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for us. Ephesians 2 10 says, we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do

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good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. The word workmanship has been

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translated handy work, but it should be work of art or a masterpiece. You are God's masterpiece.

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Is that what you said when you looked in the mirror this morning? Work of art and your

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prodigal? Can you look at them and call them a work of art, a masterpiece?

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Often I take comfort in this promise for myself and for my prodigal. Being confident of this,

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that he, God, who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion until the day

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of Christ Jesus. I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with David the psalmist. The Lord will accomplish

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what concerns me, you, your prodigal. Your loving kindness, O Lord, is everlasting. Do

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not forsake the work of your hands. God will use choices, even poor ones, and circumstances

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to accomplish what he began in each of us, building a testimony for future good works

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as he has been doing in our prodigals. Job, just before the end of his ordeal, understood,

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I know, Lord, that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

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Don't you love that? No purpose of yours can be thwarted.

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Not long ago, I reread Heinz's Feet on High Places, an allegory, the story of little Much

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Afraid and her journey to the high places to live with the Good Shepherd. It was a challenging

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journey. During a particularly difficult time, when Much Afraid spent her days making her

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way through a dense fog, she despaired that the shepherd had abandoned her and she felt

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she would never find her way. When the shepherd came to her and she asked him why she was

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lost in the fog, he replied, I am working in ways you cannot see. Oh, how true that

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is for us as we live in the fog of our prodigal's delinquency.

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How many times have you held on to this next promise? And we know that in all things, God

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works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

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Then, from my favorite prophet, Isaiah, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient

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times, things which have not been done, saying, my purpose will be established and I will

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accomplish all my good pleasure. I love to hold on to those kind of promises of who God

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is and what he's like, what he's able to do, and what he will do. In other words, God

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knew what he was doing when he created your loved one. He knows what he's doing now and

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he is continuing to accomplish his good purposes in and through that life. Yes, and in our

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own lives as well. Let's go back to the beginning. That is, the beginning of this episode or

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the beginning of your waiting with your loved one or the beginning of time. For, of course,

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with God, there is no beginning or ending. He is the great I Am. God said to Moses, I

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am who I am. He is the before and the after, the Alpha and the Omega, who is, who was,

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who is to come. He's the Almighty. As we struggle with time, with waiting, with the

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seemingly endless pain, with giving up hope, which is looking to the future, it is good

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to remember that though God created time, he does not live in time. He lives in eternity.

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But he also lives in the present, in the now. Again, his name is I Am. That's present tense.

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He calls us to live in the present, which is where we find God. When we dwell in the

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past, we relive fear, uncertainty, failure, pain. Or if the past held better times, we

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hold on to them wishing they would return. If we dwell in the future, we dream, project,

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we hope, which are not bad things, but we can't know the future and we certainly can't

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control it. God calls us to live in the present, which is all that we really have. And he is

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there with us. He tells us in Matthew, I am with you always. And God assures us through

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David that our times are in God's hands. That's true for those of us who love Prodigals,

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and it is true for those Prodigals that we love. Their times are in his hands, and we

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can rest in that. And we can keep praying. For though we live in the present time, get

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this, our prayers live beyond us. Mark Patterson writes in his book Draw the Circle, our prayers

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never die. When we pray, our prayers exit the four dimensions of space and time that

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we live in. They have no space or time limitations because the God who answers them exists outside

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of our four dimensions that he created. You never know when his timeless answer will reenter

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the atmosphere of our lives, and that should fill us with holy anticipation. Never underestimate

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his ability to answer anytime, anyplace, anyhow. He has infinite answers to our finite prayers.

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Patterson goes on to recount stories from his own life and others' lives, of prayers

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answered years, even decades later, sometimes well after the passing of the prayer warrior.

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Our God hears our prayers. He treasures them. Your prayers, we read in Acts, have come up

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as a memorial offering before God. Did you hear that? In Revelation, we see it again.

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And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down

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before the lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held golden bowls filled with incense,

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which are the prayers of God's people. So your prayers and my prayers for our prodigals,

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for those we love, for ourselves to know how to love them better, they're coming as a

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wonderful fragrance to the Lord. They are the incense that greets God at the Revelation

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at the throne of God. What a treasure our prayers are to God. And he answers them.

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Isaiah 60, we read before, in its time I will do this swiftly. We can hold onto this promise

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from our God who is before and after time, but who dwells with us in the present. And

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God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times, having all that

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you need, you will abound in every good work. Take courage from David's words on waiting

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with hope. I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of

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the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Because

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I know who God is and what he is like, and because I understand that he operates in time,

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even though he lives beyond time, I can wait and hope. I can in my heart bind together

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the difficult present with a hopeful future in this world of God's involvement and goodness.

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I can live in the light of God. I will eagerly anticipate what he will do. I will wait with

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hope. Here's something to think about. When has God worked in ways you could not see at

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the time, but later realized what he had been doing? How does that experience give you hope

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for your prodigal? Here's something you could do. What can you tell yourself right now to

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help you keep your focus on the present where God is living with you? God bless you.

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Thank you for joining me today on the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. If you enjoyed

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today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple podcasts or wherever

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you listen. Your review helps the show reach more people with the hope and encouragement

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of Jesus. Don't forget, take a look at the show notes. And for more helpful information,

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resources, and books, check out judydouglass.com. That's Douglass with two S's. You can find

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me on Facebook and on Twitter and Instagram at JudyDouglass417. Until next week.