Make Your Mistakes on the Side of Gracet (episode 12)

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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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Welcome back. I trust you enjoyed and learned from our episodes on love, our foundation

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for living with and loving a prodigal. And hopefully our conversation with Josh McDowell

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was helpful and encouraging for building strong relationships with your loved ones.

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And welcome now to the beginning of a series on grace. And the title of this episode is

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Make Your Mistakes on the Side of Grace. Hmm, we'll talk about that in a bit. I just think

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that grace is a co-essential with love. They go together in how we build and maintain relationships

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with our prodigals and improve the chances of restoration and reconciliation. Probably

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you have heard of the book or play or the movie Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. You might

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not have known that. It is a powerful story of forgiveness and redemption and grace. When

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Jean Valjean was released from a 19-year prison sentence for stealing bread, can you believe

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that? He was understandably a hardened man. Looking for a place to sleep, he was invited

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in to a church by a kind bishop. In the night, though, Valjean stole silver from the bishop

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and sneaked away. The next morning, the police found him and brought him to the bishop, silver

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in hand. The bishop's response, so there you are. I'm delighted to see you. Had you

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forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well? Did you forget to take them? And

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to the police, he said, this gentleman is no thief. The silver was my gift to him. That

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was the beginning of Valjean's transformation. What the bishop gave Valjean is called grace.

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And grace is an amazing gift from God for everyone, but especially for those of us who

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love a prodigal. In Hebrews 416, God invites us to join him on his throne of grace. It

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says, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive

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mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. If you love a prodigal, you probably

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are in a time of need. God has much experience loving prodigals, such as, oh, you and me

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and all of humanity. So he is the perfect companion for us on this wilderness journey.

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He goes with us. He comforts us. He gives hope. He relieves our fears. And he gives

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grace for all our inadequacies and mistakes and for the pain experienced by and caused

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by those we love so much. Most of us are not naturally full of grace. We don't receive

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it or give it easily. It's certainly been a journey for me to understand grace. So what

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is grace? In various dictionaries, it is defined with words such as favor, goodwill, kindness,

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forgiveness, love, mercy, pardon, reprieve. Now, does that help you grasp a little bit

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of the reality of this amazing gift? Sometimes the antonyms also help us understand the meaning

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of a word. Opposites of grace include animosity, disfavor, harshness, disrespect, dishonor.

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But we gain even greater insight into God's definition of grace from the Greek lexicon,

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not where I usually spent a lot of time, but it was helpful to me with grace. The Greek

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word for grace is kauris, which has the same root as words for joy, thanks, and gift. Here

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are some definitive kind of other words that give us more insight into grace. Joy, pleasure,

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delight, goodwill, favor, merciful kindness. In our terms today, saying it as we might

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say it, grace could be defined as not getting what you deserve, such as a consequence for

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not doing your assigned work, or for lying about where you were going, or speaking harshly

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to a family member. So if you got grace, you didn't get the consequence that you deserved.

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Grace can be being given something unexpected that you didn't deserve, such as a gift, a

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small one or a large one, that meets a need for you or a deeply desired wish that you

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had. I will always remember when I was 11, after asking my father for a horse for years,

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a friend of his loaned me his horse to ride, which I did for the next four years. Such

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a gift of grace, unexpected, not anything I really deserved, but a gift for me. Grace

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can also be giving a second or third or fourth chance. Our son made many mistakes or bad

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choices, and sometimes we gave him another chance to do it right. I think this sums it

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up a lot. Grace is like someone has paid it forward for you. I just hope that this helps

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you to get a grasp of what a wonderful and amazing and for us naturally impossible thing

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that grace is. And yet God loves to give us grace. We also learn from scripture that He

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just loves to give to us, and a lot of the grace He gives provides some specific gifts

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for us. For example, some of these grace gifts might include sufficiency for every need—patients,

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financial needs, medical provision, relational needs. Is that wonderful? Provision for every

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need. Grace also is a gift for redemption and forgiveness, for my mistakes and to give

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grace when my loved one needs it. It also is incomparable—true riches, deep relationships,

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purpose in life, peace, things that we're all striving for. God gives us through His

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grace. Encouragement. Do you need encouragement today? I had a note from somebody this morning

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that really encouraged me. We all love that, and God gives us encouragement as a gift of

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grace. He gives us strength. It can be emotional strength, which we often need with a prodigal,

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mental, spiritual, physical strength—a gift from God. Growth. We don't want to stay where

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we are. We want to keep growing. He says grace is a gift to help you grow, to learn through

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this wilderness journey and become more the person He wants you to be. Wisdom. Yeah, every

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day, every moment, we need wisdom, don't we? That's a grace gift from God.

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So I'm going to take some liberty with all that I've talked about. From the root word,

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are, that can cover grace, joy, thanks, and gift, and here's my definition. You might

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say grace is an undeserved gift from God, joyfully given and gratefully received. Early

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in our journey with our son, God said to me, when you make mistakes with this boy—and

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you will, and I did—make them on the side of grace. I'm just going to pause. I want

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you to think about that. Make your mistakes on the side of grace. This word from God led

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me to a much better understanding of grace, especially God's grace and how He continually

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has given me grace. But I also began to comprehend the role it would play in the life of our

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prodigal and the importance of my giving grace to Him to maintain a strong relationship with

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Him. In the next few weeks, we will consider several ways we can learn and grow in and

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live out grace on this wilderness journey. My prayer is that the grace of the Lord Jesus

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Christ will be poured out on us and through us abundantly.

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And as we close, let me ask you some questions to think about. What meaning of grace has

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been enlightening to you? In what way? How has it helped you to understand the incredible

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reality of amazing grace? How have you seen the grace of God active in your life? And

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how might you extend grace to your loved one today and every day this next week? And next

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week we'll talk about the voice of grace. 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.