A willingness to pray “God, do what You must.”
If you’re a parent, you’re a ‘fixer’. It’s what we do. Whatever the situation, we’re always at-the-ready to find a solution, make it better, fix what is broken or soothe what is hurt. We hate to see our kids in pain or dealing with hardship. Our hearts hurt to know that they grieve or struggle. When we see it, we jump to try and fix it.
Yet, sometimes we can’t fix it. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s that we’re unable to. That’s a hard place to be, isn’t it? When our son or daughter is going through a hard time, it’s difficult to watch and we want, more than anything, to make it better. But sometimes it’s beyond our ability. And if our son or daughter is running from God, we can’t change their heart or bring repentance. That’s something only God can do. No matter how much we desire it, we cannot ‘will’ them to change.
We become like the little child, bringing the much-loved broken toy to our Father saying ‘fix it’, ‘heal it’, ‘make it better’. But sometimes the situation and damage requires intervention that is difficult to watch and painful to endure. We don’t want our son or daughter going through pain- we’ve spent our lives working to spare them from it! We don’t want to see things get worse- our entire prayer directive has been that it would be made better.
It’s akin to someone needing a heart transplant. The hope for life and health lie in getting a new heart. But it’s not that easy. First, a new heart must come from a donor, someone who lost their life and was willing to donate their organ to be a life-saving opportunity for someone who is dying. Then, the patient must be willing to undergo extensive transplant surgery. They’re surgically opened up and their old heart is removed and the new one is put in place. It is radical, painful, and dangerous. But the hope for life overrides the fear of pain and the anxiety about the procedure. And the hope for life requires that the patient undergoes the painful process.
Friends, the prodigal has the same need. They need a new heart. Their current heart is damaged and diseased. Their situation will surely lead to death, perhaps not a physical death, but a spiritual death looms.. The enemy laughs and takes delight in the slow demise and the sure destination that a prodigal life assures. The process required to remedy this direction and destination means the prodigal has to die to themselves and be willing to allow the Lord to give them a new heart to remedy the damage that’s been done. It’s a painful process. It’s difficult to watch and we know what needs to happen. But it’s excruciating to see our son or daughter go through difficulty, pain, and suffering. But when we’ve done all we can and there is still no change, we need to step back and allow God to work.
Friends, are we willing to pray, “God, do what You must”?
Are we willing to pray, “God, do what you must”? That’s a hard prayer. It’s an anguished prayer. It’s a prayer of surrender, acknowledging that the rescue is beyond our ability to achieve. This prayer requires that we not interfere with what God chooses to do. We have to squelch the urge to rush in and rescue, to mitigate the painful consequences, to redeem the bad choices, to make it better, because really, we won’t make it better, we’ll only prolong the process. When we truly turn our son or daughter over to God to work as He wills, it is the ultimate act of trust. It’s trusting Him that He can parent them better than we can. It’s trusting that our God loves them more than we do. It’s trusting that His ways are higher than our ways and that He is the only One who can effect change and redeem the wayward heart. It requires full surrender on our part to achieve surrender in their heart.
It requires full surrender on our part to achieve surrender in their heart.
“God, do what you must, and help me to trust You.” It’s a prayer of surrender. Here’s another question…if we’re not willing to pray that prayer, are we fully surrendered to the Lord? Do we love Him more than we love our son or daughter? Do we trust Him enough? It requires some introspection into our own hearts and attitudes. It’s a peeling away of those things we’ve trusted other than the Lord. It’s a purifying of our own faith. We must be willing. But we can be honest with God, too, and tell Him how it scares us, because that prayer does bring fear of what may come. But, brothers and sisters, He is Lord of what may come. We need to rest in His goodness.
“God, do what you must, and help me to trust You.” Continue praying that prayer. Every moment, every day. Breathe it out. Remind yourself that God is Sovereign and He can do whatever He wills. He WILL do whatever He wills. We can either accept and support it, or fight it and be miserable. We must trust the Great Physician. He is able to give the prodigal a new heart and a surrendered spirit. Ezekiel 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish. Matthew 18:12-14
Today, write out a prayer of surrender and trust to the God who is able to do more than we could ask or imagine. He spoke all of creation into existence. He subdues nations. He rules over every power and principality. He can turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, tender and surrendered to the Lord. Trust Him. Ask HIm to work mightily and to show you that He is working and moving. Remember, His timeline doesn’t mirror our own, but He is Lord of the clock, Lord of the calendar and Lord of the one He created… He loves the prodigal and longs to see them return. Trust Him.
God is not done working!
Pray without ceasing, friends.
Protected, Powerful Prayer
Ephesians 6:10-13
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
Romans 8:26-27
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”
Praying for a prodigal son or daughter can be overwhelming. It can drain us of joy, hope and energy, especially if we’re putting so much focus on pleading and interceding on their behalf that we neglect our own spiritual health.
Remember the days when our children were infants? We were exhausted just trying to meet their basic needs. It seemed all-consuming. Yet, we had to make the effort to eat, sleep and care for ourselves, because if we neglected ourselves too much, then we were not able to meet the needs of our little one.
Friends, it’s much the same with our spiritual needs. We are praying against the enemy himself and if we do not take time to ensure we are guarded, protected and shielded by our Savior, we run the risk of being a target as well.
We need to put on the full armor of God, daily. The FULL armor. We can’t go into this half-dressed. We can’t just grab our shield of faith and call it good. No, we need the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth and feet that are ready with the gospel. Only then are we equipped and ready to battle for the hearts and minds of our sons and daughters.
And when we don’t know what to pray? That’s when we cry out to the Spirit and ask Him to intercede for us. Who better to plead with the Father than the Spirit who knows what we need and can express it in words...rather groans that reach the heart of our Father. “He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” And isn’t that what we want for our sons and daughters? To be obedient and blessed in the will of God?
Today, let’s take time to pray the armor of God over ourselves and our sons and daughters, and then pray for the Spirit to intercede on their behalf and work in ways that are beyond what we might imagine for them.
Pray without ceasing.
The Battle of the Mind
Philippians 3:18-21 “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
Here’s a startling statement: either we live for Christ, or we are His enemy.
What does it mean to be an enemy of the cross? That word, enemy, in the original Greek means hateful, hostile, at enmity with God (1). Often we think of hate as the act of rebellion and venomous speech, resisting and fighting against something with every ounce of physical and emotional strength. But hate can be a passive hostility, a rebellious spirit or a hard attitude against something or someone. Hate is a mindset. It won’t dissolve without a change. Unless the mind is convinced, the heart won’t follow.
And here’s the thing. The battle is all in the mind. Satan is the great deceiver. He will convince us, beyond a doubt, that his lie is the truth. He will deceive us into thinking that the darkness is where we will thrive. He will convince us to drink his poison to satisfy our thirst only to laugh and watch us choke on his evil. He will invade our minds and thoughts to keep us from submitting to God and will, rather, convince us that we can and should be our own god. Psalm 10:4 “In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.”
We need to fight this battle right where it’s happening. We need to ask the Lord to intercede in the minds of our sons and daughters and redeem them from the grip of the Enemy. We need to pray scripture to fight Satan. When Jesus was tempted, he answered Satan with scripture, He fought the battle of the mind with the very words of God. Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Today, let's take time to pray scripture over the minds and hearts of our sons and daughters. God is able to intervene and turn enemies of the cross into faithful followers who love Him with their heart, soul, mind and strength.
Pray without ceasing!
1. G2190 - echthros - Strong's Greek Lexicon (kjv). Retrieved from https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g2190/kjv/tr/0-1/
Praying for Change
James 4:7-10
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
What is it that we want most for our sons and daughters who are wandering...or straight up running away from the Lord? We want change. Honest, about-face, change of heart, mind and loyalty. But let’s dig in deeper. “Change” is a nebulous word. Let’s get specific.
What is at the root of their wandering or living as a prodigal? Often it’s rebellion, pride and selfishness. Our human nature rebels against God’s authority. We want to make our own rules and follow our own path. We refuse to see how God’s boundaries are really the lines within which we will thrive and flourish. The fertile soil, the protected land, the best irrigation and nourishment all lie within the boundaries God set for us. He’s marked off the very best ‘land’ for us to enjoy. Yet, we look longingly over the fence at what appears to be greener pastures. And we insist on pressing against the fence until it gives way. We want what we want….and we tell God “You’re not the boss of me!”. Oh, but He is.
We run, we laugh and mock, we revel in our ‘freedom’ only to find that we are lost, hunted by the Enemy and losing our ability to meet our own needs. It is dark, empty and the smell of death surrounds us. We reap the consequences of our ‘knowing better’ only to realize that we don’t. But sometimes, sometimes we are so prideful we refuse, even then, to admit our fault. We would rather sit in our own stench than submit to God.
But the remedy is simple and the change it brings is dramatic. All we need to do is submit to God. Submit and we will have the strength to resist the devil -he will flee! Submit and God will draw near to us. Submit and He will make us clean. Oh that our sons and daughters would see the benefits of following the Lord. But if they’re outside of God’s boundaries, they’re likely blinded to what is good and right because the Enemy has them in a stranglehold and bound in darkness.
Today, let’s pray that our sons and daughters are confronted with the awfulness of their sin and that they are grieved by it. Pray that their hearts are broken over their pride, selfishness and rebellion. Pray that they see their path only leads to death and they are terrified by it. Pray that they truly mourn their slow death of sin. Because scripture says, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted Matthew 5:4.
Jesus brings life. Jesus brings change!! Oh that our sons and daughters would embrace that change by submitting to God and letting all that He holds for them become their inheritance. Pray that they know life and freedom in Christ. Pray for the change that will turn their eternity into one of hope, joy, light and life.
Pray without ceasing!!
Don’t forget to join us tonight for our final Bible Study connected to the Without Ceasing devotional book!! We’ll be digging deeper into Scripture and talking about how to pray for a prodigal child.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J83ssz_JqEQ
Just go to the link and join us at 8pm EST. Can’t join us then? No worries, the video will stay on youtube and you can watch it later…and share with a friend!
Sorrow over Sin
2 Corinthians 7:10 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
This week we’re focusing on prayer for the wanderer and our scripture is aligned with the live teaching that will play tomorrow night (October 19) at 8pm. There are SO many things we can and should pray for our sons and daughters. Today, we’ll pray for sorrow over sin.
God wants us to see our sin for what it is… rebellion and disobedience against Him and His will for our lives. It’s a selfishness that puts our fleshly desires above those spiritual boundaries and expectations that God put in place. When we see our sin for what it is, we see that it breaks the heart of God. If we truly love God, we’ll be broken over our selfish rebellion and we’ll desire to be back into right fellowship with Him. Worldly sorrow only leads to death. It doesn’t bring that heart change that leads us from darkness into light and brings salvation. Worldly sorrow is drenched in darkness and has no power to transform us.
Pray that, if our sons and daughters are not walking with the Lord, the eyes of their heart would be opened to see how grievous their choices are and how much their sin and rebellion distances them from God. Pray that Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation. Pray that they truly mourn and lament their sin.
Pray without ceasing.