What is a Prodigal?, episode 4 (rebroadcast)

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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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And welcome back again to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. This is Judy Douglass and

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I am so glad that you are here for the first time, if that is the truth, or as you are

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coming back to join us again. What we have covered so far is a little backstory about

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the son that God sent to us as a foster child and then we adopted him and God said he is

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a gift. And we began to experience a lot of challenges because Joshua had had so many

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challenges in his life. And if you want to hear the earlier episodes so that you can

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know that story, please go back and listen. But what I would like to do today is kind

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of a pause between the backstory and getting into what I hope will be a lot of help and

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hope for you if you love a prodigal. First I want to define some terms because a lot

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of people aren't sure what a prodigal is and some have very firm definitions. So I am going

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to use, I am a journalist, and so I am going to use who, what, why kind of questions that

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journalists use to take us through some definitions and understandings that I think will be helpful

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to you as you think about the person that you love. First question is who. Well, a prodigal

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can be anyone. It can be a child or a grandchild. It is often a teen or a young adult. It can

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be your sibling. It could be your spouse. It could even be your parent. And assuredly

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it is you and I. We are all prodigals in some way or other. And so the person that you love

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could be at any place in your life and you love them and you are hurt and sad for the

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decisions and the choices that they are making. A definition. Well, often people from Christian

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backgrounds will think of a prodigal as anyone who has left the faith and is not letting

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the principles of their faith guide their choices. They could be making really bad choices

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or they could just have turned their back on their relationship with God. But we are

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dealing with a broader look at that. That is true for many, but there is more. Here

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is a surprise, Hi Beth. The original meaning of the word prodigal is that it is an adjective

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and it means extravagant, lavish, abundant, and bountiful. That is not what we think of

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when we think of a prodigal because the word has morphed into a noun and it is a person

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who is extravagantly wasteful, lavishly reckless, and abundantly profligate. Somebody who is

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making destructive choices in their life. Now, in my book, When You Love a Prodigal,

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I talk about those who are lovers of prodigals. And who is that? Without a doubt, it is one

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who extravagantly and lavishly, with perseverance, loves a prodigal. So when do people become

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a prodigal? Well, it can happen pretty near at any time in their lifetime, even very young,

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but most often it begins in their teens. Because at that time, lots of children who are in

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their teens now are trying to figure out who they are. They are trying to get a sense of

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identity. They are working on separation from their parents and their control in their lives.

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And so they do things that they are pretty sure their parents don't like, partly because

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they are trying to say, I am my own person now. It can last a long time or it may not

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start until later. It could be a brief time. It really varies. There is no total pattern.

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Increasingly, there are lots of people in their 20s who are in that category of being

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a prodigal who is making choices for their life that, at least in the minds of those

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who love them, are not going to be good for them. And many people in their 20s now aren't

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even showing much maturity until they are in their late 20s, which is a change from

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the past. So how does it happen if we knew how they became a prodigal? We might be able

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to step in and keep that from happening. Possible. But it's not too hard to figure out some

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of the hows. First of all, they can have trouble at school. They make bad grades or they struggle

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with the way school works and it doesn't fit their learning style. And they are in

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trouble because of acting out. Maybe it's because of their ADD. Lots of reasons that

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would cause them to do the things that are not acceptable at school. And so then they

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become used to being in trouble and that can go on in life. A lot of times it's who you

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hang out with. Friends are so important. And the Bible says when you hang out with the

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wrong people, you make the wrong decisions. And so that can be a very strong reason. Here's

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another one. Smartphones. Now I know we didn't have them until recently. But even so, they

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have given kids access to so much that is detrimental and can lead them to some poor

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decisions. One of my grandsons came home and told his parents he had to sit with some different

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people at lunch because the boys he knew were spending their lunch hour at school watching

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pornography on their phones. And he at that time did not want to do that. I don't know

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that he ever has. But pornography has been a real avenue into a prodigal life because

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it grabs hold of them at a young age or an older age and really holds onto them and causes

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them to lower their values and the things that are important. And then they are tempted

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to or choose to begin to experiment. They experiment with alcohol often first or drugs

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or both. Experiment with sex. They get addicted. And addiction almost always will lead to crime

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because they'll do anything to get their next fix. And so that will often lead to stealing

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and it will often cause them to go beyond just petty stealing where they can get into

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some real criminal mischief or serious crime. And so those are all things that would be

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the avenues that took them into their prodigal choices. But then you need to go back a little

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further and say, well, why? Why would they do that? Why do they want to rebel? Well,

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for a lot of them it's the reason that I've struggled with in my life and that's one

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in my own way. And I talked about that in episode one. And so sometimes it's just they

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don't like that school requires certain things and church requires and their family requires

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and work requires everything. They're being told what to do and they resist that. And

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so they want their own way. Sometimes that just leads to attitude. But sometimes it leads

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to choices that are really negative and even destructive. Sometimes so it really is just

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fun with friends and they want to try something or do something a little risky and then the

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novelty and the excitement of that's not enough. So they up it a little and try something else

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that would cause them because of doing fun things with their friends to keep moving beyond

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boundaries that would protect them into situations that could be harmful for them. But now I

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want to take you to another why that most of us probably don't think about. And that

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is trauma. Now when you look at our son who came out of a family where his dad never showed

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up and his mother chose her addictions and exposed him to abuse and to lots of alcohol

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and drugs even as a young child and some abuse and those kind of things you think yes he

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has experienced a lot of trauma. And so that would be easy to see why he might make the

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choices that he did later in life. But there's so much more to trauma. Adoption especially

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can be a cause of trauma. Even if you get a child as a baby and people say oh no that

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can't be because they instead of being abandoned they're coming into a loving home with a

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family who's going to care for them and you've had them from the beginning and they know

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that they're yours. From the experts that I've talked to they know that there is this

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hole in their heart. Where is that mother that they lived in for those nine months.

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She was real. She was their home and then she's gone. So there's and they don't understand

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it and it might be several years at least before they understand that they were adopted.

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But there are a lot of other causes of adoption. Certainly if there's abuse in a home I don't

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mean of trauma in their lives. If there's abuse in their home that's a certain source

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of trauma for them. If there are parents who are not focused on meeting their needs and

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helping them make wise decisions and make poor decisions that can cause that to happen

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in their lives. But sometimes it's other things that aren't so negative. Say another child

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comes a year later and all of a sudden this one year old is pushed aside in a sense because

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mother is focusing on the newborn. And that isn't a terrible thing. It happens to many.

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And yet it is a source of loss which is a trauma to that baby. If a person has a serious

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illness or experiences an injury or has some disability all of those are traumas as they

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grow older especially because there's something that has been negative in their life that

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they can't control or overcome. Sometimes it's as they get into school and they experience

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rejection it could be a teacher who doesn't like them or it can be the kids who won't

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sit with them at the lunch table. You think everyone experiences that. How can that be

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trauma? Well the more people understand what trauma is in a life and how it affects the

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brain and the will and everything about a person the more they realize it can be even

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some seemingly normal things of growing up but still are hurtful and painful to the person

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who experiences them. And so often prodigal choices come out of some kind of trauma in

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their life. Some of it was never intentional. It just happened. But there are those who

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just want their own way and they'll do anything to get it and they will make those negative

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choices. So I want to mention a little bit of where we're going in the future with this

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podcast. We talked about the how they get involved and we're going to look at some of

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those in more detail especially from maybe some school people some psychologists some

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counselors. We're going to look at some information on drugs and alcohol and addictions and those

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kinds of things. But we're also going to look at the spiritual side because you see God

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loves prodigals. He rescues us and we are all prodigals. And he has said over and over

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of his heart of compassion throughout scripture says he had compassion on them. He looked

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at them with compassion because he loves us and our prodigals so very much. And so his

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word is full of the promises that he makes to us the provisions that he gives us the

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way that he meets us the way that he will provide for us. And we'll talk about some

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things like time. The most common question that people with a prodigal probably ask of

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God is how long oh Lord. We're in good company there because that's what David said a number

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of times in the Psalms. How long Lord. And so we'll talk about God's perspective on

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time. Loving a prodigal can be absolutely exhausting because you've run out of options.

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You don't know what to do. You're exhausted. And so we're going to spend some time on talking

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about rest. The thing that we would probably most do is go to prayer and we don't even

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know how to pray and we're going to talk about how to pray for those prodigals you love.

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But we're going to also talk about how prayer becomes the means for growing our own relationship

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with God and a lot of different approaches to prayer that I hope will be helpful to you.

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We're going to talk about how you learn to trust God and oh we're going to talk about

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how to have hope when you can't see a way forward and you can't see that there's hope.

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Many times we would watch our son and the choices he would make and we would find our

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self thinking what is his future. It's either to die or to be in jail. We didn't see how

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the choices he would make was making would go anywhere else for him. And we're going

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to talk about how we can have hope when that's all we can see. But we're also going to talk

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about some words that have been the most important for me in our relationship with our son. One

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is love. Love of the quality and passion of God's love. We're going to learn more about

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it. We're going to talk about the importance of not losing relationship. If even in the

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hardest time when they reject us we can in any way possible hold on to some relationship

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then they know that they are able to come back. We're going to talk about mercy because

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God has given us mercy. We haven't deserved it. We didn't earn it and he has done that.

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He's given us mercy and he's going to ask us to learn to forgive those who hurt us so

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much. And we're going to learn about grace because God gives us grace beyond what we

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can imagine or ever think that we should have. And he wants us again to be the conduit of

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his grace to those that we love who have rejected. Next week we will be hearing from a man named

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Dan Wolgemuth. A good friend of mine. He's the president of Youth for Christ and he has

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begun with Youth for Christ. They are working more and more with at-risk kids. Dan was kind

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enough to write a foreword for my book and because he knows a lot about at-risk kids.

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And so I'm just going to read these sweet words that Dan wrote for my book. And so when

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it comes to he says something about Judy because he wrote this for the book. And then know

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that you will hear much more from him next week as I interview him. So here is the foreword

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for my book When You Love a Prodigal. Quoting from Luke 15 20. And he, the prodigal, arose

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and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt

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compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. While he was still a long way off. A

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long way off, a chasm of shame and guilt and regret and anger and bitterness and despair.

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A chasm that only love and grace can navigate. Jesus, the teacher of all teachers, teaches

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us to love prodigals. To love in a way that crosses the chasm. While the prodigal is still

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a very, very long way off. Jesus doesn't minimize the distance. He resources fuel for the journey,

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fire for the soul. Traversing the pain filled, doubt littered, fear exploding route of redemption.

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A son, two sons, one consumed with pleasure, the other consumed by the pursuit of power

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and control. Both prodigals, both lost and demanding, both a burden. Enter the love of

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a father. Enter the love of the father. Yes, God loves us first. And his love isn't restricted

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to saints. No, it focuses precisely on sinners with sacrifice, humility and passion. God's

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love for sinners is why he loves me. A prodigal. Sure, more politely prodigal than some, but

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a prodigal nonetheless. The prodigal journey is all of our journey. The message of hope

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and life comes from the love of Jesus. God's messenger and message to prodigals. Our reaction

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to the message, we dismissed and despised him. We mocked and rejected him. This is often

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what happens to those who love a prodigal. Yet our pain has a companion in Jesus. We're

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never alone in the journey across the chasm. Through the vast and tiring journey in the

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midst of hopelessness and pain, Jesus is our guide and our friend. He is our breath and

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our advocate. And in the journey, tears water the dust of a discouragement. When our resolve

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is extinguished and our courage depleted, God, through Jesus, shows us the way while

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he is still a long way off. Jesus doesn't simply join us in the journey. No, this is

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his journey that he invites us to be part of. This is his burden to carry, to wound his

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wound to salve, his tear to wipe. Indeed, he knows the wilderness well. And that is

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why Judy wrote this devotional as a cup of cold water in the wilderness, from here to

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there, across the lonely and difficult chasm. Her story is raw and personal, authentic and

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tender. Her wilderness journey has a name, a face, an aching heart. And as Judy penned

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the words that follow, she attacks the lie that those who cross the chasm go alone. No,

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you're never alone because Jesus, our King and Redeemer, saw, felt compassion, ran, embraced

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and kissed a desperately lost son, our son, our daughter, us. When You Love a Prodigal

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is a book that Jesus wrote long ago. And I'm so grateful that Judy has powerfully and compassionately

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highlighted the immensity and persistence of God's amazing love and grace. Thank you

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for those wonderful words, Dan Wolgemuth. And thank you for listening today. And I look

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forward to you being with us next week as we hear more from Dan about loving a prodigal.

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Thank you so much.