Prodigal: I love these flowers.
Me: Me too!
Here is another video. We are now on Proverbs 1:4
To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Author Archives: Jennifer Van Allen
God is Close
Me: How is your day at the beach?
Prodigal: It’s hotter than a boilin’ pot of neck bones.
Me: Well don’t stay out there to long then.
Prodigal: I wont.
Today we will share from Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa Terkeurst
The problem is, we have been trained to process life based on the way we feel. We think we must feel love for love to exist. We think we must feel wanted to truly be chosen. We think we must feel God’s presence for Him to really be close. But God never meant for us to feel our way to Him.
God wants us to stand on the absolute truth that He is with us no matter our feelings may betray that reality. When I process life through my feelings, I am left deceived and disillusioned. When I process life through God’s truth, I am divinely comforted by His love and made confident in His calling on my life.
I used to say I didn’t feel close to God, and therefore, God must not be close to me. Now, I say: God is close, and if I choose to be close back, He’ll rearrange by feelings. In other words, I need to make an intentional choice with my head, knowing that my heart will eventually follow.
This is not a day where you run off in the sunset with a loved one and the birds are singing songs in the background. This is a day where you are in the wilderness of a blizzard with no sun shinning but only clouds. You feel alone and without the warmth of love. Remember though that doesn’t mean you are not loved.
Psalm 105:7-8
He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Are We Innocent
Prodigal: This is the perfect spot.
Me: Yes, it is. We should spend some time thanking God.
This is from the book Bold Love by Dr. Dan B. Allender & Dr. Tremper Longman III
When the question of failure to love is raised, it should be heard as the whisper of a friend, not the accusation of an enemy, because our failures can be the delicious entry into a new comprehension of God’s grace. Unfortunately, we are often so committed to seeing our involvement with others as innocent and our presumption of goodness untarnished that we retreat from facing our own lovelessness. It seems inconceivable to most of us that relief can be found in facing our failure. In seeing what is in our heart, we might be further compelled to flee from our presumption of self-sufficiency and embrace the hope of relationships built on God’s initiative and not on our performance. However, this kind of dependence requires a broken heart that has given up the demands of pride. Many are simply not ready for such loss of face.
Remember no pride and no hurt can be in the conversation. Only a spirit of peace and love that the Lord gives you can help you address what you need to address. Say what the Lord directs and no more. Leave the outcome of their heart with the Lord.
But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.
Job 28:12-13
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Trying to Obey Him
Me: Prodigal, you don’t look happy about your day.
Prodigal: There’s a yellow jacket in the outhouse kinda day.
Me: Well, I am glad your here!
This is from C.S. Lewis
To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.
To trust, to obey and to submit. This means glory and love for our Lord! It may be a dying of the flesh to glorify the Lord but that is part of the submission.
Titus 3:8
This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Women Lovin’ Jesus
Prodigal: Wow, another video again.
Me: Yeah, the Lord says make another video.
This is on Proverbs 1:3
Proverbs 1:3
To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgement, and equity
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalipig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Finding Your Life
Me: Do you like the bees Prodigal?
Prodigal: I wonder if I can go get some honey?
Me: Don’t dig up more snakes than you can kill.
This is from the book The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it “life” and “self,” or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words “gain” and “profit” suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is in the end to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ’s sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: it is by the Cross. “Let him take up his cross and follow me.”
There is a peace in letting go and surrendering it all to God. Surrender the opinions of others and hold on to Christ’s opinion of you. Surrender the outcome of this trial. The outcome is sure to glorify the Lord. Surrender the blessings that you want, knowing that your relationship with Christ is sufficient for you.
Galatians 1:20
Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Women Lovin’ Jesus
Prodigal: Did you make another video?
Me: Yes, I would like y’all’s feedback!
Today a post was made on Proverbs 1:2
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Proverbs 1:2
To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding.
Women Lovin’ Jesus
Me: We have another video to share!
Prodigal: What is the theme?
Me: Proverbs
I hope that you check out the video of the week for Women Lovin’ Jesus. We are going over the book of Proverbs.
There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee,nor forsake thee.
Joshua 1:5
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
The Man Who Has God
Me: Howdy Prodigal!
Prodigal: I am enjoying the start of my day.
Me: Let me help you with the start of your day.
This is from A.W. Tozer and the Pursuit of God
O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing, I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Critics
Me: Prodigal, where did your friend go, I saw y’all talking.
Prodigal: He shoots off his mouth so much his breath smells like gunpowder.
Me: Maybe he just needs time to himself.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings, who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the high achievement of triumph and who at worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows his place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Don’t listen to them. I am supporting you and standing behind you!
2 John 2
For the truth’s sake, which lives in us, and shall be with us forever.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org