Your Prodigal Is a Gift, episode 157

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right

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here at When You Love a Prodigal and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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So I have a question for you.

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Have you recognized the gift yet?

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That is the gift that your prodigal is?

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Because I have spent many years immersed in prodigalness, my sons, my friends, my audience,

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and even my own prodigalness.

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And because our former prodigal is experiencing a few challenges in his life, I have been

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back on my knees in a new way.

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As I have listened to the stories of friends and prayed for my son and many others, God

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has taken me on a journey back into the wilderness to help me see what he has done.

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Gratefully, I was reminded over and over of the transforming truths that I have learned

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on this path, on this wilderness journey, and I am still learning from them.

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These truths are gifts.

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Let me remind us all of some of the gifts that we receive on a prodigal journey, therefore

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gifts from our prodigals.

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What are these gifts?

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Well the first one I want to mention, we talked about two weeks ago, and that is grace, because

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it's kind of the foundational one.

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There are a couple others too, but it's a very important one.

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And if you listened two weeks ago, you heard me quote what God said to me one night about

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our prodigal.

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When you make mistakes with this boy, and you will, and I did, make them on the side of

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grace.

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I know that I have received from God over and over the gift of his amazing grace.

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Grace freely offered to me and to my loved one by God himself.

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Grace that covers and fills me and flows through me to our son and to lots of others, to you

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and to your loved one.

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That grace is a gift, a mini-gift.

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So I want to look with you at some gifts that come from the grace that God has extended

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to us.

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The first one that I would mention is mercy.

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I love mercy, and I'm always reminded that our God loves mercy.

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He tells us in Ephesians 2, but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in

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mercy, isn't that a great concept?

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Rich.

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He's just abundant in mercy, and he made us alive with Christ even when we were dead

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in our transgressions.

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It is by grace you have been saved, and it's by grace that that mercy comes to us.

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I have received mercy many times, and slowly I have learned to give mercy.

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I know you can find it challenging to give mercy to one or ones who have disappointed,

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disobeyed, opposed, lied, stolen, embarrassed, caused so much pain.

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It's hard to be merciful.

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But we are supposed to forgive.

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Really forgive?

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Yes.

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That's the action point of mercy, is to forgive.

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Yes, because we have been given mercy.

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God desires and enables us to extend mercy.

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It is grace that gives the reason and makes the channel for mercy to flow.

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It purchased our forgiveness and made mercy for our loved ones, made it possible, because

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we have been given mercy.

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We have been forgiven, so God is going to flow through us with that mercy for our loved

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ones.

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So the next time they really do something that angers you or scares you or hurts, ask

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God to let his mercy flow through you.

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Now going along with grace and mercy is love, and we know that is one of the basic realities

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of what God has given us.

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Perhaps you remember the Chris Tomlin song at the cross, Love Ran Red?

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I've listened to it a lot of times, and it's really a powerful thought that what God's

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love did for us, the blood of Christ was shed for us at the cross.

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And I can barely grasp how much love God has for me and is willing to love my prodigal

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through me.

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Now that might be one of God's hardest jobs, is loving through me, because I'm not always

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real good at it, but it's an extraordinary gift to realize that unconditional love is

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just that.

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It's a gift that's been given to us, no conditions, unconditional, requiring nothing in return.

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I think in my long journey with our son, that was one of the most important things that

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I understood, that God's love for me was not conditional on my doing the right thing, obeying,

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acting right, treating even my son right.

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No, he loved me no matter what.

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And again, just like grace and mercy, that love flows through us to our loved ones.

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Once we need to be reminded of what that love that God gives to us and wants us to give

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to our loved ones.

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He says, love is very patient and kind.

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Never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude.

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Love does not demand its own way.

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It is not irritable or touchy.

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It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.

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Let's pause there.

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Will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.

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It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out.

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If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost.

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You will always believe in him or her.

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You will always expect the best of him or her.

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And you will always stand your ground in defending him or her.

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That's what the love of God flowing through you will look like.

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So we've seen gifts of grace and mercy and love.

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Here's another gift that my prodigal has given me, and that is prayer.

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As I received and began to experience God's grace, mercy, and love flowing through me,

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I was ushered back to a depth of prayer that I hadn't experienced in a while, to crying

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out to God, to falling on my knees and on my face.

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This has been true before, but my need in the hard wilderness years with our prodigal

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had me on my knees, on my face, calling out to God.

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It was there before, but now even more.

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I once again found myself praying without ceasing.

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I was in constant conversation with God.

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I love this invitation from God in Hebrews 4.

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I think I used it a couple of weeks ago too, but it's so good.

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Let us come boldly to the throne of God to ask of him what we need and desire, and to

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stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our time of need.

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We don't have to be ashamed to come to God in prayer.

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He says, come, come, hang out with me, come talk to me, tell me what you need, pour out

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your heart, tell me how hard it is, tell me the pain that you're experiencing.

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Come and I'm listening, and there you're going to find mercy and grace and love for

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your time of need.

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Come and pray with me, he says.

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And here's another gift, not one of your favorites, perhaps.

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It is the gift of surrender.

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Okay, true confession, I am a stubborn, strong-willed person.

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My family would tell you that, but I recognized it eventually too.

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But so is my wanderer, my son of many years of prodigalness, definitely stubborn and strong-willed.

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And perhaps you are, and most likely your loved one.

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And just as our son had to learn to surrender his way to God's will, his so much better

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way, so have I.

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I am eye-willing to fully entrust my life and my loved one to my Lord.

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Surrendering's not an easy thing, is it?

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We kind of keep our fists really tight a lot of times, holding on to what we want.

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And we especially are holding on to our prayer, our desire that God would rescue this one

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we love and therefore rescue us from all the pain that's involved there.

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In our long wilderness journey, I think I begged, I cajoled, I demanded that God step

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in and change him.

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I still wanted my own way.

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But watching my prodigal, as he experienced God's grace, mercy, and prayer, as he slowly

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opened his tight-fisted hands, in tentative surrender to God, it opened my eyes to my

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own stubbornness.

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And I have also chosen to surrender.

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I've chosen to put him on an altar to the Lord, saying, he's yours.

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I give him to you.

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You know what I want, you know what I've asked for, you know what I'm begging you for, to

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do in his life, in her life.

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But I give them to you, and I surrender my will to your perfect will.

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And then finally, not the last gift, but the last one I'm going to talk about today.

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But if we looked at, we've looked at grace and mercy and love and prayer and surrender.

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And this last gift is blessing.

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Did you know that Ephesians tells us that God has already blessed us with every spiritual

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blessing in the heavenlies in Christ?

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Is that amazing?

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Every, every.

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There are no more spiritual blessings that God has not made available to us.

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Now, maybe we don't always take hold of them and apply them in our lives.

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I'll have to think about that.

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But he has blessed us.

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And I'm sure that I could never come close to passing on that many blessings to my prodigal.

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Yet I'm encouraged to do just that.

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What does it mean to bless someone?

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Here are some definitions to express good wishes or to offer prayer to God for someone's welfare

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and benefit.

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What a wonderful thing to ask for good to happen in another's life.

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Now blessing or prodigals can be challenging.

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You may have heard me tell this story before, but it's still a good story.

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Once again, our prodigal had aggravated me.

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My natural reaction was to raise my voice and assign a consequence.

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Instead, as he stormed out of the house, I went to his room, gathered his scattered dirty

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clothes and headed to the laundry room.

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Doing his laundry was his job, not mine.

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And as a teenager, he somewhat cared what his clothes looked like.

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But today it was my job.

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And as I threw each shirt and shorts into the washer, I said, my son, I bless you.

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Josh, I bless you.

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Josh, this is a blessing to you.

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Now I don't know if he felt blessed or if he even noticed, but it did wonders for me

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to do something tangible to bless him.

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Why did I do that?

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Because God has convinced me of the power of blessing and the challenge to live it out.

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He says, do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult.

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On the contrary, repay evil with blessing because to this you were called so that you

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may inherit a blessing.

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He says, whatever they do, your return is to give blessing.

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So do you see it?

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Your prodigal and my prodigal are powerful gifts to us.

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Let me name them one more time.

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Grace, mercy, love, prayer, surrender and blessing.

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Now does that mean that those prodigals have done that to us?

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No, it means that because they are in our lives and God is calling us to extend grace

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and mercy and love, to be on our knees, to surrender our wills and to pass on blessing.

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Because the prodigal in our life has enabled us to grab hold of these wonderful gifts from

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God and what does he do with them?

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What amazing gifts he's given us and he has used the pain of our journey to enhance and

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expand these beautiful gifts in our lives, which of course enables us to give them to

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our loved ones more and better and again and when it hurts and when they don't deserve

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it.

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He says, I've given it to you.

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Now you give these gifts to your loved ones.

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So here's my question.

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Which gift or gifts have you experienced an abundant measure when I was naming them and

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describing them?

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Which one?

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Okay, I've gotten that one.

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This one on not so much.

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Well, let's work on the ones you've gotten so far.

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Can you pass it on?

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Can you look for an opportunity to pass that on to this person that you love who's caused

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so much pain?

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Be sure to check out the links in the show notes.

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There'll be some more to help you on these gifts.

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And again, I'd love it if you liked and subscribed to this podcast and I want you to know that

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next week we are going to be having a conversation, a great conversation with Dennis and Barbara

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Rainey who are the founders of the Family Life Ministry, the authors of many books, and

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they're going to be talking about relating to your adult children.

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Now it's been my observation that maybe we're having more problem with adult prodigals than

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with the younger ones who are still in our home.

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At least I seem to hear about it an awful lot now.

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And so they have some really good hints.

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They raised six children and had one who was a real prodigal.

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And so they have some wise words for us.

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So don't miss next week.

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And it's time to go vote if you haven't.

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God bless you.