Moving On - Fear 4, episode 149

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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

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Also help and hope for your own life journey

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We did it

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We prayed for all those names on our list of treasured loved prodigals

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What a privilege to be able to do that. I

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Hope you were able to join us for a little or a lot of the worldwide prodigal prayer day

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Did you join with some others to pray or or just pray by yourself and?

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What a battle it was it always is I am always

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Exhausted at the end of the day because we and those we pray for have an enemy

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Who doesn't like that?

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We are on our knees on behalf of our loved ones. He will do all he can to keep us fearful

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But thanks be to God who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession and

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Uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. Do you like that that thought?

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He says he uses us

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To be the one to spread the knowledge and understanding of the love of God everywhere

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What a privilege

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So what do we do now that we pray?

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Well

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Mostly we wait for a while to see what God is doing

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Sometimes we will see immediate answers other times we await the unfolding of change

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He is often kind to give us little glimpses of his response to our prayers

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Some of us will rejoice in amazing transformation

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Mostly we will wait I I remember one time when

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Josh is it was in big trouble with a

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Gang that his gang would have been fighting and he would came home terrified that they were coming after him and

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And

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What God did was let that happen so that he then

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Wanted to get out of town and we sent him to Colorado with a lot of our friends who were going to be there

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And he was working on a work crew

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For the summer away from all the other friends. That was an immediate answer

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But that wasn't the norm

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It usually was a lot of waiting and here is a verse that has sustained me through many years of waiting

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This is one of my favorite verses as Isaiah 60 22 I

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Am the Lord in

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It's time. I will do this swiftly

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We want now we want God to intervene to step in and take care of the situation and

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We recover our loved ones and he says I I'm working

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In its time, I will do it swiftly

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So we wait

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We also trust

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God heard he heard

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Your prayers he heard my prayers. He heard the prayers of the

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thousands around the world who took some time to lift up these prodigals and

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We have a great assurance from God's word that he desires for our prodigals to return to him

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and us

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So we take comfort from these verses

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This is the confidence we have an approaching God that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and

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If we know that he hears us whatever we ask we know that we have what we asked of him

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Yeah, we may have to wait, but we can trust that he's gonna do that

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We can be sure that God desires to welcome the prodigals home and

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A verse that has sustained me to keep trusting is John 5 17 and

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Jesus said to them my father is always at his work to this very day

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And I too am working

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Don't you love that he doesn't let up. He doesn't have to sleep every night. He doesn't take a vacation

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He's always working and he's working to bring those who have gone afar

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back to home

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Then an important thing we do we wait we trust we thank

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The apostle Paul reminds us in verse Thessalonians 5

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Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus

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That's been one of the most important lessons

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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

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to give thanks and

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In the waiting we get to say thank you Lord and in the trusting we're saying thank you Lord and

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And he's he's working. He's working even when we don't see it

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We are admonished to give thanks in all things even when we don't yet see what we hope for

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We commit to a prodigal prayer day, but then we must remember that we look through a glass that's dark

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We don't see the whole picture

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God is always working even when we can't discern it. He is doing what he's going to do

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But it sometimes isn't on our timetable

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Giving thanks get this giving thanks is often what opens the door

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For the next step that God wants to take

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So we wait we trust we thank

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We give love and grace as

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The hands and heart of our Savior to our loved prodigals our father says

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He will woo them back to himself with his loving

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kindness and

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We those who love them are his primary means of extending that love and grace

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That will eventually maybe tomorrow, but maybe not tomorrow

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Maybe later draw them back to God and us

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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

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Change the hearts and attitudes to receive our love

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So God works in them, but he's working in us at the same time and

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Sometime what he will do is change the way we react to them

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to one of love and grace and

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that

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Opens their hearts and minds and helps to draw them back

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Let me say it again the breakthrough with our prodigals often comes

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When God has worked in us enabling us to be channels of his love and grace to them

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And

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Then we hope because we have a strong anchor to hold on to our hope is Jesus himself

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We remember that God's promises are all yes in Christ

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Did you get that all the things that we've talked about that God has promised? He says it's yes in Jesus

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So we have confidence that we can keep hoping

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Romans 15 13 says made the God of hope

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Fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope

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by the power of the Holy Spirit so

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Last week I talked about

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losing hope and that fear was pushing out my hope and

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And God says no

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You can have hope because you're trusting in God in the Savior in the Lord Jesus

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And he says this hope will keep you trusting and thanking and waiting and

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Loving your prodigal

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And then of course we keep praying

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with hope

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with perseverance with

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assurance a

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Day set aside to pray for prodigals is wonderful

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Engaging us and our God for release of his grace and power

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But we still need to keep praying

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Be sure to check out the show notes

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I have posted several links of prayers and ways to pray that will help you going forward

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I believe they will enable you to keep on asking and seeking and knocking

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For God to come into this and draw them back to the himself to you

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Back to the home that you have for them

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Let us know what you see God's hand at work

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Doing in the life of your prodigal after the prayer day now

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You can go to our prayerforprodigals.com

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and our prayer for prodigals Facebook and

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In both places you can share

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Any requests as you have but you can also let us rejoice with you when you see God doing

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Work in the life of your loved one

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It may be a little step and it may be a great big step

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But we who have prayed would love to rejoice with you

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And you can share new prayer requests and we will pray with you

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Our yearly day of prayer is on June 2nd, but our community the prayer for prodigals community

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Praise all year you can join us links are in the show notes and some more music for you

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May you hold on to hope as you keep loving and praying

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God bless you