Moving On - Fear 4, episode 149

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at when you love a prodigal podcast and Also help and hope for your own life journey We did it We prayed for all those names on our list of treasured loved prodigals What a privilege to be able to do that. I Hope you were able to join us for a little or a lot of the worldwide prodigal prayer day Did you join with some others to pray or or just pray by yourself and? What a battle it was it always is I am always Exhausted at the end of the day because we and those we pray for have an enemy Who doesn't like that?

0:52 We are on our knees on behalf of our loved ones. He will do all he can to keep us fearful But thanks be to God who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession and Uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. Do you like that that thought? He says he uses us To be the one to spread the knowledge and understanding of the love of God everywhere What a privilege So what do we do now that we pray? Well Mostly we wait for a while to see what God is doing Sometimes we will see immediate answers other times we await the unfolding of change He is often kind to give us little glimpses of his response to our prayers Some of us will rejoice in amazing transformation Mostly we will wait I I remember one time when Josh is it was in big trouble with a Gang that his gang would have been fighting and he would came home terrified that they were coming after him and And What God did was let that happen so that he then Wanted to get out of town and we sent him to Colorado with a lot of our friends who were going to be there

2:25 And he was working on a work crew For the summer away from all the other friends. That was an immediate answer But that wasn't the norm It usually was a lot of waiting and here is a verse that has sustained me through many years of waiting This is one of my favorite verses as Isaiah 60 22 I Am the Lord in It's time. I will do this swiftly We want now we want God to intervene to step in and take care of the situation and We recover our loved ones and he says I I'm working In its time, I will do it swiftly So we wait We also trust God heard he heard Your prayers he heard my prayers. He heard the prayers of the thousands around the world who took some time to lift up these prodigals and We have a great assurance from God's word that he desires for our prodigals to return to him and us So we take comfort from these verses This is the confidence we have an approaching God that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and If we know that he hears us whatever we ask we know that we have what we asked of him

3:59 Yeah, we may have to wait, but we can trust that he's gonna do that We can be sure that God desires to welcome the prodigals home and A verse that has sustained me to keep trusting is John 5 17 and Jesus said to them my father is always at his work to this very day And I too am working Don't you love that he doesn't let up. He doesn't have to sleep every night. He doesn't take a vacation He's always working and he's working to bring those who have gone afar back to home Then an important thing we do we wait we trust we thank The apostle Paul reminds us in verse Thessalonians 5 Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus That's been one of the most important lessons I've learned in my walk with God and you've heard me mention it if you've been listening very long to the podcast to give thanks and In the waiting we get to say thank you Lord and in the trusting we're saying thank you Lord and And he's he's working. He's working even when we don't see it We are admonished to give thanks in all things even when we don't yet see what we hope for

5:35 We commit to a prodigal prayer day, but then we must remember that we look through a glass that's dark We don't see the whole picture God is always working even when we can't discern it. He is doing what he's going to do But it sometimes isn't on our timetable Giving thanks get this giving thanks is often what opens the door For the next step that God wants to take So we wait we trust we thank We give love and grace as The hands and heart of our Savior to our loved prodigals our father says He will woo them back to himself with his loving kindness and We those who love them are his primary means of extending that love and grace That will eventually maybe tomorrow, but maybe not tomorrow Maybe later draw them back to God and us Perhaps the changes he's doing in us will also transform our responses our words and our actions toward our ones who are breaking our hearts and Change the hearts and attitudes to receive our love So God works in them, but he's working in us at the same time and Sometime what he will do is change the way we react to them

7:11 to one of love and grace and that Opens their hearts and minds and helps to draw them back Let me say it again the breakthrough with our prodigals often comes When God has worked in us enabling us to be channels of his love and grace to them And Then we hope because we have a strong anchor to hold on to our hope is Jesus himself We remember that God's promises are all yes in Christ Did you get that all the things that we've talked about that God has promised? He says it's yes in Jesus So we have confidence that we can keep hoping Romans 15 13 says made the God of hope Fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit so Last week I talked about losing hope and that fear was pushing out my hope and And God says no You can have hope because you're trusting in God in the Savior in the Lord Jesus And he says this hope will keep you trusting and thanking and waiting and

8:43 Loving your prodigal And then of course we keep praying with hope with perseverance with assurance a Day set aside to pray for prodigals is wonderful Engaging us and our God for release of his grace and power But we still need to keep praying Be sure to check out the show notes I have posted several links of prayers and ways to pray that will help you going forward I believe they will enable you to keep on asking and seeking and knocking For God to come into this and draw them back to the himself to you Back to the home that you have for them Let us know what you see God's hand at work Doing in the life of your prodigal after the prayer day now You can go to our prayerforprodigals.com and our prayer for prodigals Facebook and In both places you can share Any requests as you have but you can also let us rejoice with you when you see God doing Work in the life of your loved one It may be a little step and it may be a great big step But we who have prayed would love to rejoice with you And you can share new prayer requests and we will pray with you

10:16 Our yearly day of prayer is on June 2nd, but our community the prayer for prodigals community Praise all year you can join us links are in the show notes and some more music for you May you hold on to hope as you keep loving and praying God bless you