We Prayed. Now What? (episode 36)

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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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I have a wonderful word for you. Your prayer has been heard. We've talked about different

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ways to pray and I assure you that God has heard every word.

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Another story about our son. He'd been gone for a month living with a friend in Tennessee.

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You see it was one of those times where his actions indicated that he had chosen to move

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out by repeatedly not living by our agreements. But where he was in Tennessee he couldn't

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find a job and he was getting hungry. He arrived at night at our home. It was the only home

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he really had. And I was very kind and said, all right, you can stay here tonight, but

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you need to find a place to go tomorrow. My daughter was home from college and came in

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that evening not happy to see that her brother was there. The next night my husband and I

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were out and Josh showed up with his drunk high friends. He fell asleep and my daughter

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came home. And when she saw Josh passed out and his friends doing things they shouldn't

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be in our home, she made them leave. She pushed them out. And when we got home, she said,

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after telling us what had happened, if he doesn't leave, I will. I cried out to the

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Lord once again, how long Lord? Now I have to choose between my children. My daughter

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won on that one. For the next six months he slept on the couch at a friend's apartment.

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God certainly understood our emotions in this battle. Over and over he asked, how long,

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oh Lord? How long, Lord, he says, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide

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your face from me? I know I've said those words and I imagine you have as well. Another

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of my hard times came when it seemed that my son was moving in a good direction. Yay!

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Hope was being fulfilled. His life was changing. Something happened. He reverted. Bad choices

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returned. Hope was dashed. Despair set in. How long, oh Lord? I know of another person

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in scripture who surely asked that question for seemingly a long, long time. Unanswered

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prayer, longing and waiting. His name is Zechariah. He and his wife Elizabeth had pleaded and

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waited for a child for decades. Then a word came from God. Do not be afraid, Zechariah.

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Your prayer has been heard. This message was delivered by a heavenly messenger assuring

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Zechariah he had nothing to fear. And his decades of prayer for a child had not fallen

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on fears. God had heard. Now was the right time for God's answer. His son, John the

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Baptist, would prepare the way for the coming Christ. Now I'm not a heavenly messenger,

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but I'm saying to you, your prayer has been heard. God has this message for us. For every

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time we say, how long, oh Lord? Every time I say, how long, oh Lord? I find myself going

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to these kind of comments and things that I throw back at the Lord. Are you listening,

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Lord? Do you even care? What about the promises? Can I believe you? I'm afraid. I'm afraid

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for the future of my loved one. Will change ever come? Is there sin in my life that blocks

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my prayers? Or am I just not an effective prayer? Will my hope for him ever be fulfilled?

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Or will hope always be disappointed? Those are the kinds of questions that we're asking

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in our desperation. And there are others. You know what yours are. But the right answers

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to these questions is not in things, listen, not in things turning out the way I want in

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my pain, leaving in the answer that I desire. The answer is in God himself, in who he is

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and in what he is like. I can never understand all that he is doing or how he is working.

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But I do know this. He does all things well. He is good and is always looking for ways

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to do good to us. And his promises are true and can be trusted. And I can know with Zechariah

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that my prayers have been heard. In times that are often full of bad news and disappointment,

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as we wait for an answer, may you know that God has heard your prayers and his answer

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will be right and at the right time. I want to read that again. It's so important to

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remember. Know that God has heard your prayers and his answer will be right and at the right

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time. So imagine that you've stuck with me through all of these sessions, these podcasts

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on prayer, and you've been trying to bless and you've been giving thanks and you've

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been resisting the devil and you've been talking to God about everything. And then

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you say, well, now what? What do I do now? What else? What comes next? Everywhere I go,

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I see greater evidence of the intensifying efforts of the evil one to capture hearts

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and minds, especially of young people, and to carry out his steal, kill, and destroy

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agenda. God calls his people to battle on their knees. What a battle. I pray for my

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prodigal and for those loved by others. When I spend extended time praying for prodigals,

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I am always exhausted at the end of that because we have an enemy and he doesn't like that

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I'm on my knees. We and those we pray for have an enemy and he's going to resist, but

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we keep following the instructions of the Lord that we resist him. God's word reminds

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us, but thanks be to God who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal possession

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and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. Our prayers are like incense,

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an aroma, a fragrance going up to God. In Revelations it talks about that. So after

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you've prayed long, speaking out everything you can think of to pray, what do you do after

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any of us prays, then what? Here are things we can do or will need to do. We wait. Oh,

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that's just what you wanted to hear, isn't it? I've already been asking, how long, how

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long, when do we see an answer and you tell me, wait? Because I think that's one of God's

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very favorite words. We wait to see what God is doing because he's not off doing something

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else and ignoring us. He's not just laughing at our pain. He's watching because he's doing

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something good. Sometimes we see immediate answers and we have on a number of occasions,

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but other times we await the unfolding of change. He is often kind to give us little

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glimpses of his response to our prayers. Some of us will rejoice in amazing transformation.

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Most often we're going to wait a while because the next thing we need to do is trust. Trust

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God that he heard and is answering our prayer. We have great assurance from God's word that

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he desires for our prodigals to return to him and to us. So we take comfort from these

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verses. This is the confidence we have in approaching God. If we ask anything according

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to his will, does he want your prodigal to come back? Oh, yes. If we ask according to

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his will, he hears. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we

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have what we asked. Is that a promise you can hold on to?

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Another thing that we need to do is thank. And I know I just talked about that, but I

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can't tell you how important it is. We thank God that he is moving even when we don't see

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it. We are admonished to give thanks in all things, even when we don't observe the answer

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we have hoped for. We must remember that we look through a dark glass and God is always

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working even if we can't tell what he's doing. What else can we do after we've prayed? We

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give to our loved ones love and grace. We are the hands and heart of our Savior to these

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prodigals. There will be other people God puts in their lives, but we're the primary

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people to love them, to give grace to them. Our Father says he will woo them back with

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his loving kindness. We are the ones that make that loving kindness tangible and will

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eventually draw them back to God and to us. We hope, oh yes, most of the time we know

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quit hoping. We're always hoping. Sometimes we become so desperate that we just throw

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it away, but it comes back. And we can know this. We have a strong anchor to hold our

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hope. Jesus himself is the anchor for our hope. We remember this. Oh, I love this. God's

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promises are all yes in Christ, so we have confidence to keep on hoping. The promises

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that God makes and all these assurances that we've been reading, Jesus is the yes, and

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we can have confidence to keep on hoping. And then finally, so essential, we walk in

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the Spirit. Remember and appropriating all the Spirit offers us. I'm going to say more

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than I even did last time of what the Spirit offers us. He advocates for us. He encourages

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us. He comforts us. He shows truth to us. He sets us free. He gives peace. He fights

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for us. He's there when the devil attacks. He empowers us. We do this. This whole walk,

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this whole prodigal wilderness journey, this whole prayer journey, we do it as we walk

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in the Spirit moment by moment. When we get out of the Spirit, we're depending on ourselves.

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We need to be in the Spirit, and we keep praying. We pray with hope, with perseverance, with

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assurance. We still need to keep praying, asking God for the release of His grace and

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power into the lives of those we love so deeply. Think about this. When have you doubted that

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God has heard your prayers? From the list of things that we can do after a time of prayer,

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think, trust, thank, give love and grace, hope, walk in the Spirit, keep praying. Which

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is the hardest for you to keep doing? Ask God to set you free in that so that you can

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continue to trust Him. Let me give you this wonderful word of hope here. You can find

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all of these prayers and more in chapter 6 in my book, When You Love a Prodigal. If you

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couldn't possibly, and I'm sure you couldn't as I was talking, capture all of this to apply

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it, you can find it in the book and spend some more time there letting God assure you

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that He's heard your prayers and that He is working. You may not see the answer when you

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don't. You may not see the answer in your lifetime sometimes, but God will not abandon

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you or your loved ones. 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.

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Until next week.