*feel free to leave a photo of your prodigal in the comments and let’s all pray together.
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength:” Mark 12:30
I’ve been thinking recently about choice. The freedom to choose.
I graduated from high school on the fourth of June, married the love of my life on the twenty-seventh of July, and we had our first child by the next November. Our choice.
We not only have freedom to choose as Americans, but we are also given freedom of choice by an Almighty God.
We choose whether we will love and believe in God, whether we will trust and follow His will for our lives, or whether we will rebel and do our own thing.
As almighty, powerful and sovereign as the Lord is, He will not push Himself and His perfect will upon us. We must choose Him! He made Adam and Eve in the beginning and gave them freedom of choice. God chose them, but He also made them choose Him. We all know how that story ended.
As I was reading in the book of Ruth this morning, I thought about how Ruth and Orphah were given the same opportunities to follow Naomi, but only Ruth made the choice to do so. We are all well acquainted with the infamous verse, “where you go, I will go…”, that was a choice Ruth made and lived out. Because of this righteous choice, God showed favor and blessed not only Ruth, but Naomi too.
God has a perfect plan for our lives. He has a good ending in store for each of us. A beautiful story to unfold. He’s chosen us, but we each must choose Him back. Our choice!
It makes my heart so sad to see lives in such disarray and people so wrapped up in things which will only serve to ruin them in the end. Bad choice after bad choice is made as they keep choosing to push God away. My thoughts turn to the prodigal son in the Bible. The life they’ve chosen is so far off from what God had planned for them. However, although He is present, He is a gentleman and must be given permission to work in that life again.
As parents, we can stay on our knees in prayer for children who are making poor choices or who have gone completely astray, and we must; however we must be willing to stay there indefinitely because God has given us all the privilege to choose — even our wayward children. Only last week, I was reminded of this when a mom-friend I have finally saw her daughter’s life turned around. She’s been praying and holding onto hope for twenty-six years!
We cannot give up on them. Yes, they have a choice, but we have a choice too. We must choose to keep praying and believing that they will choose to find a place to repent. We must choose to pray that their eyes will be opened and their hard hearts will turn back to a loving God who can make all things new again. We must make the hard choice of continuing to hold on to hope and pray for them, in spite of weariness, until our last, dying breath.
There are all kinds of choices to be made by parents who have wayward children. Some choices are easy, like whether we will continue to love them simply because they are ours. However, some choices take every ounce of strength we have because we love them, but cannot condone their actions and lifestyles. We must choose to stand for what is right and not compromise. Along with parenting a prodigal may come feelings of failure, rejection, disappointment, grief of loss of relationships, sadness and anger. This is normal, but we must keep giving our hurt and frustration to the Lord.
Choice is a double-edged sword of sorts, especially when we parents would desire the Lord to shake our children back to their senses today. All we can do is continue to love them, to pray for them, and keep being a Godly example…that’s what God does for all of us. Don’t give up, as long as there is a God and as long as they’re alive, there is hope - and choice.
Let’s choose to pray, trust and believe our prodigals are coming home. I’ll be the first to admit it is disappointing and tiring too at times. We cannot get angry with God for their choices, we must instead choose to hold onto the hope that they will wake up in their proverbial pig pen, return to their senses and finally choose Him. It might be hard to believe, but God wants it even more than we do, He loves them even more than we do. Believe it! What a celebration we’ll have together when our prayers are finally answered, no matter how long it takes. Hang on, believing we too will stand and testify some day of our prodigal’s return.
Keep praying, dear mom and dad. We’re in this together. Until…
My beautiful, prodigal daughter, Allyssa ~
Please say a prayer. Thanks!
