Prayers of Blessing and Forgiveness, episode 35 (rebroadcast)

0:00 Do you love a prodigal? Do you feel like you are lost in a scary and endless wilderness? Welcome to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. I am Judy Douglass and I spent more than 15 years in that wilderness. I believe together we will discover help and hope for your journey. Last week we looked at prayer for the battle. We know there is an enemy pursuing our loved ones and I hope you found some help in praying for your loved one in that battle. Our son had lied, not the first time. This time with sincere assurance that he was speaking the truth. When I knew it was a lie, anger overwhelmed me. Harsh words came from my mouth. I almost said, don't bother to come home. Fortunately, God seemed to stop the last word, home, before it came out and he gave me calm, truth, and words of blessing. When was the last time you spoke words of blessing into the life of your prodigal?

1:21 Blessings are words of life. Not long ago I read John Ortberg's book, Soul Keeping, Caring for the Most Important Part of You. In it, John shares abundantly from his years of being mentored by Dallas Willard. I especially liked the chapter on blessing. The soul needs blessing. I've written a lot about blessings and I've written a lot of blessings for people. I know it's a key to restoring the hearts of our loved ones to us and to God. But this chapter again reminded me how important it is. John quotes Willard, blessing is the projection of good into the life of another. Certainly, we desire that for our loved one.

2:15 Dallas Willard told Ortberg many times that the two ways we impact people with our words are to bless them or curse them, usually one or the other. Sometimes we aren't aware if we are blessing or cursing, but we can certainly intentionally choose to bless. When I raise my voice or give a sharp retort or use always or never, I am probably cursing my son, but I want to choose to bless, to encourage, affirm, speak truth with love, to speak words of life to my loved one. I think you would want the same. God chooses to bless us. Here's a familiar blessing from the word that he gives. It says, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Sometimes I have spoken those very words and other blessings aloud directly to my loved one. Sometimes he rejected the blessing in anger, but usually it diffused a situation or calmed him down. More often, my blessings have been prayers or have been

3:52 blessings of action, of grace and mercy extended. I have written many blessings for people I love, often praying them for a person I care for. I usually ask God for the scriptures that I should be praying for my prodigal or someone else. Then I turn those scriptures into blessings. Here's a blessing that I wrote for my and all other law prodigals several years ago. They'll probably work for yours as well. I pray it will give you the heart and words to bless your loved one. Remember, I'm taking scripture and turning it into a blessing. I call what I'm going to be reading to you a number of blessings. A blessing for a loved child. From Micah 7, may you rise when you fall and come out of the darkness into God's light. In Jeremiah, we read, may you be built up, not torn down, planted, not uprooted. May you return to God with all your heart. Ephesians 2, may you hope in the future of God's good plans for you. And again in Jeremiah, may you comprehend that it gives God joy to

5:22 always do good to you. And in Psalm 90, may nothing of the world, the flesh, or the devil satisfy you but only God. Joel says, may all the days and years of your life stolen by the evil one be restored. Isaiah says, oh I love this, may the comfort, peace, and healing of God bring praise to your lips. Hosea, this is a favorite, may you feel cords of loving kindness as the Father bends down to feed you. Joel says, may God pour out his Holy Spirit on you. In Romans, may you know that in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation.

6:21 And again in Romans, may you be convinced that nothing can separate you from the love of God. And in Ephesians, may the eyes of your heart be enlightened that you might know God. And again in Ephesians, and may God bless you more than you can ask or imagine. I would really encourage you as you're in the Word of God and you see a scripture that you wish would be true for your loved one or come true in your family, that you would take that and turn it into a blessing. So it's more than just a prayer, though a prayer it is, but it's also speaking life to the person that you're blessing. Another important prayer that we really need is forgiveness, both to give it and to be willing to receive it. Our prodigal wronged us many times over the years. He often lied to us. I already established that. He cursed at us. He stole from us. He embarrassed us in front of friends and neighbors.

7:38 He disrespected us. You know what? Those things rarely impact our relationship now. Why? How is that possible? Because we have forgiven him. All relationships require forgiveness sometimes. We are flawed people who hurt others, even those we love. Scripture is abundantly clear that God wants us to learn to forgive, even though people have wronged us and don't deserve forgiveness. Paul sums it up with this instruction, bear with each other, forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. And of course, our model is Jesus himself, who said from the cross with the people below him who were crucifying him. He says, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. We need to forgive both big and seemingly impossible to forgive things, as well as little hurts that happen every day. What if they haven't apologized? Even then we're to forgive. I know it's not easy. Several months ago when I was talking about

9:08 grace I shared a prayer for forgiving, a prayer to help us take the step to release someone who has hurt or offended us. Because of the magnitude of forgiveness and the necessity of it, I'm including it here again. So just think of as I pray through this, read through this, think of something that you need to forgive your loved one for. Father, thank you for your mercy and grace toward me and for giving my sins through your son's death on the cross. Thank you that you forgive me over and over. For repeated sins and new sins, big or small, I am so grateful for your mercy and grace. Lord, I need to forgive. Say the name. My loved one who has wronged me, hurt me, betrayed me, offended me, sinned against me, whatever it is, it's hard for me to do this. I am still hurt, angry, confused. So I come asking you for the power to forgive him or her. Fill me with your spirit and remind me of your love and mercy to me and put the name in there. By your spirit, I choose to

10:40 forgive my loved one. I choose to extend grace and mercy to him or her even as you have done for me. I choose as you enable me to live at peace with this person in your love. Please may we be reconciled and our relationship healed. And if that does not happen, may I continue to love and forgive. Thank you that this is possible in the power of your spirit and in the name of Jesus. But sometimes we are the ones who have offended our loved ones.

11:25 I can definitely think of times when I've had to say, please forgive me to our son. I might have said harsh words or made degrading comments or unfair discipline or threats or caustic attitudes and these all damage the one we love as well as hurt our relationship. Then I or you or all of us are the ones who need to ask forgiveness from our prodigal, our loved one. This requires the challenging choice to humble ourselves and admit offense, our sin. A simple prayer like this can help. Say their name. I was wrong to name the offense.

12:19 It's not going to get very far if we're just saying, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Name what you did. I know that was hurtful to you. Our relationship matters to me and I desire to relate to you in a better way. Will you forgive me? Thank you so much. And often they will. More often than not. One more person might also need to be forgiven. You might have to forgive yourself. Though we are often at the receiving end of wrong and offense, we still find ourselves saying, I didn't handle that well or even I really blew that.

13:06 So be sure to extend mercy to yourself as well. So we need to bless our loved ones and we need to forgive them and we need to ask them to forgive us and then we need to forgive ourselves. Think about this. What blessings might you speak to or pray for your prodigal? How could you bless them? And do you need to have a conversation about forgiving with your loved one now or soon? God bless you. Thank you for joining me today on the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. Your review helps the show reach more people with the hope and encouragement of Jesus. Don't forget, take a look at the show notes and for more helpful information, resources, and books, check out judydouglass.com.

14:23 It's Douglass with two S's. You can find me on Facebook and on Twitter and Instagram at JudyDouglass417. Until next week.