Hope for the New Year, episode 127

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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 at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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And also help and hope for your own life journey.

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It's the first of the year, isn't it?

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Hope, newness, resolutions, promises fulfilled, past forgiven.

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A new year lifts us up, shaking off the remnants of last year's mistakes, opening a panorama

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of a better future.

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We love to leave the hurts and failures of yesterday, believing that tomorrow is filled

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with sunshine and promise, except when you love a prodigal.

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Too often fears went out.

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You hope, but you dare not get your hopes up.

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You dream, hoping it doesn't once again become a nightmare.

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You believe, but always with clouds of doubt blocking the brightness you desire.

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In our Prayer for Prodigal site and Facebook page, we have had some wonderful stories of

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hope fulfilled and dreams coming true among those we have loved and prayed for this past

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year.

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We are so grateful and we praise God, fills our hearts and our mouths.

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But we also have had disappointments, bad choices, painful separations, even tragedies.

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Hopefully, even in those we can say, thank you, Lord, because we have a faithful Father,

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a compassionate Savior, and a powerful Holy Spirit, and the assurance that all the promises

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of God are yes in Jesus.

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I'll say that again.

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We have the assurance that all the promises of God are yes in Jesus.

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Can we have hope for the new year?

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Possibly so, will all our desires and dreams come to pass?

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Probably no.

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Will our protocols break our hearts again?

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Possibly so.

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Will we make mistakes as we seek to restore and reconcile?

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Without a doubt, we will make some mistakes.

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The only certainty we have in life and in life with a protocol is God.

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The only certainty we have is God.

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He knows.

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He knows it all.

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He knows your plans, your prayers for next year.

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He knows the choices your loved one will make.

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He knows his grand plan and how this all works together.

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He doesn't just know, though, he cares.

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He looks at them and at us with tender tears.

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He feels the rejection, the loss, the fear, the disappointment.

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He stays with us through it all.

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He knows and he cares and he is able.

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He is not a God who wishes he could help.

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He can.

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He can help.

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He is El Shaddai, the Almighty.

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He rules heaven and earth and even our lives.

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He said nothing is impossible for him.

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So my challenge to you and to myself is to make God himself the object of your New Year

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hopes and dreams, to seek him above all, to entrust my protocol, your protocol, and ourselves

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and his loving and able care, to surrender my plans, to believe God's intentions are

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very good, to trust his spirit, to give me everything I need with my loved one in the

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coming year.

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Gratefully in my decades of walking with God, of experiencing his love, mercy, and grace,

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of seeing his faithfulness, I have learned a lot of realities and lessons that help me

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keep hoping.

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And because I need help remembering, I usually put my lessons into slogans that will jog

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my memory.

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You probably know all of these truths already, but these memory applications, those little

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slogans have helped me greatly.

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And my brief explanation of each one represents only a tiny fraction of all God has taught

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me through these lessons.

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So here are some of those things that I have learned.

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First God is God and God is good.

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I can't tell you how many times I say that when things don't look good, but God is God

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and he is good.

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When circumstances are difficult, uncertain, painful, scary, or just not to my liking,

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I remember that God is truly God.

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He is sovereign, in control, aware, and able.

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So it is very good to know that he is also good.

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How frightening if this powerful God were evil.

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Jeremiah tells us that God is always looking for ways to do good to us.

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The thing I've learned, the work of God is done on our knees.

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Then we find out what happened.

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Most of us pray a lot, especially when you have a prodigal.

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Morning and evening, maybe every meal when we have a need.

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We pray about everything.

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But I have discovered that prayer is not a necessary activity for my work and efforts

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to succeed.

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Prayer is my work.

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The fruit will then be discovered as I head out to live my life.

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Third, the greener grass was spray painted by the evil one.

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Most of us are addicted to the greener grass syndrome.

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We desire something that is newer or better or more fun, or we think some other place

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or job or person would be more satisfying.

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Because God uses discontentment in our lives to spur us on to new opportunities.

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But mostly he urges us to be content, to rest in his provision.

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The evil one loves to distract and attract us with this bright spray paint.

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We need, as Paul suggests, to choose contentment.

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Isn't that really true?

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We always think, if this happened, or I want this to happen, or Lord, do this.

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If we can ask him, but we need to have this open heart and mind that says, this is what

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I would like, but I want what you have, Lord.

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Sometimes that discontentment leads us to a new opportunity.

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But a lot of times it just causes us to not be satisfied in what God has given us at this

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time.

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So we choose to be content with where God has us.

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The fourth lesson I've learned, always seek to encourage everyone.

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The usual understanding of encourage is to come alongside someone who is discouraged,

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or feeling sad, or fearful, and by words and actions and presence to lift them up, to share

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positive attitudes, to give hope and help.

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And that's all good.

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But there's more to encourage than that.

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Another word that is similar and in the same place as encourage is exhort.

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And that conveys a fuller meaning.

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I usually define my sense of calling from the Lord to encourage God's daughters and

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sons to become all that God created them to be, and to do all that God has created them

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to do.

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And so I spend a lot of my time in life encouraging people, suggesting they could try this, assuring

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them that God will take care of this, especially encouraging people with prodigals, that God's

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still in control.

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And so encouraging people is extremely important.

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But there's one more key part of encouraging.

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The literal meaning of encourage is to put courage into.

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And isn't that what it takes courage to follow Jesus, to discover who and why he made me,

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yourself, to pursue all that he has for us, and to keep hoping for a good future for a

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prodigal you love?

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So may I encourage you right now.

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God is still working.

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He hasn't given up.

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He knows what your prodigal needs.

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He knows what you need.

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And he is involved.

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He's engaged and he will make it happen in the right way at the right time.

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The fifth lesson I learned, never settle for less than God's best.

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My kids probably heard that a lot when they were growing up.

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God tells us in Ephesians 2.10 that he already has good works prepared for us to do.

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And though he provides all we need through his spirit, we still need to choose to work

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hard and to do the part that he has for us for his glory.

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Sometimes I'm just too tired or have too many things on my plate to do any of them well,

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or perhaps something else looks more desirable.

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I'd rather do that.

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I have told my children and myself many times, don't settle, depend on God's guidance and

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strength and provision.

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Never settle for less than his best.

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And that includes in loving your prodigal.

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Keep loving, even when you have to have strong boundaries, even when there are consequences,

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even when you don't know where they are.

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Keep loving, and God will give you the ability to do that.

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And then my last of these little lessons I've learned, there are many more.

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I just picked these out.

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His way is always better than my way.

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When I came to Christ on New Year's Eve many decades ago, I didn't fully understand what

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I was committing to.

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But this I was sure of.

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I was choosing God's way instead of my way for my life.

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Now you have heard me say before that I always wanted my own way.

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So this was a significant commitment.

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And I would love to say that that choice settled it.

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But in reality, every day I get to make choices.

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Will I demand my own way?

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Or will I believe the truths that we've been looking at here and surrender to his will?

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Hopefully I will continue to choose his way over mine more and more.

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And mostly I have.

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And know this.

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This is important for you.

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My 15-year prodigal wilderness journey has been a major teacher in my learning to trust

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God and choose his way.

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Something that we each need to understand, to grasp in the prodigal journey, is this

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not just about a prodigal, the person we love.

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It's also about us.

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God's so creative and he's always working in us as well as working in that person we

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love as well as pursuing them.

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And it's extremely important to allow God to do that work in us and to be responsive

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to that.

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Really and truly, God has taught me more almost than any other way through the 15 years of

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hard times with our prodigal.

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I learned most of the things that I share on this podcast because I walked through that

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journey and God taught me things and God showed me things and he showed me who he is

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and who he will always be for me.

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I can trust him.

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I hope these few highlights from my years of seeking to walk in the light will encourage

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you as they have guided me.

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May this coming new year reveal more of God's creativity, love, and faithfulness for you

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and for your prodigal.

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So take some time to think about life lessons that you've learned, but specifically lessons

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you've learned in this time with a prodigal.

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And if you're real new in it, you'll learn some.

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Be alert.

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But if you've been on this journey for a while, God has been working in you just as

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he's working in your prodigal.

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So identify something that you've seen him do in you, something you understand more than

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you ever have before, hard decisions you've been able to make, trusting decisions you've

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been able to make.

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Let God speak to you about the work he's doing in you as well as in your prodigal.

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God bless you.

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Have a great new year.