Prodigal: The Lord’s beauty is amazing!
Me: Yes, it is
Whom have we, Lord, but Thee,
Soul-thirst to satisfy?
Exhaustless spring!
The water’s free!
All other streams are dry.
Author unknown.
Psalm 139:14
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: I am so good at pickin’ strawberries!
Me: Oh, quit blowin’ your own trumpet.
Prodigal: Well, let’s just hear some wisdom then.
This is from Dr. Bing Hunter
God’s delay in giving answers seems to be a major way He encourages faith. Having seen that He is faithful following prayer over a week, you find it easier to trust Him for ten days. Seeing the answer to persistence after a month strengthens me to wait in faith even longer for another…Patience and faith thus develop together in prayer.
The journey of faith takes us beyond what we thought it would. God still loves us and it just teaches us to keep praying and share with others our faith along the way.
Proverbs 3:5-8
Trust in the Lord with all your hearts;
do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.
Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
Then you will have healing for your body
and strength for your bones.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Politicians’ are an interesting bunch.
Me: They are deaf in one ear and can’t hear out the other.
Prodigal: Now that will put a smile on your face!
This is from the book I have a friend Who’s Jewish Do You?
Did you know that that NASA Ames Research Center in California analyzed the elements found in the human body and they confirmed that Genesis 2:7 is actually accurate? “And the Lord God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person.” They not only found that we are made of the same elements as those of dirt, but did you notice that God breathed life into us?
That life is ordained by God and not man’s hand. We have the ability to think, breathe and eat because of the Lord on this day. Praise you God that you are in control of the details of our body also!
1 John 4:6
We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Howdy Prodigal!
Prodigal: How are you?
Me: I am good, I saw you alone and was checking on you.
Prodigal: I am just spending some time alone with God.
Me: I can share about some good things to focus on with your time alone with God.
This is from Joy in Christ’s Presence by Charles Spurgeon
Meditate upon the gracious acts that procured such blessings for you. Consider the labors that your Lord endured for you and the sufferings by which He purchased the mercies that He bestows. What human tongue can describe the unutterable misery of His heart or tell so much as one of the agonies that crowded upon His soul? How much less can we comprehend the vast total of Christ’s sufferings! But all his sorrows were necessary for your benefit, and without them not one of your innumerable mercies could have been bestowed.
Psalm 90:17
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Howdy Prodigal!
Prodigal: I was just thinking about Jesus.
Me: Let me share about Jesus.
This is from the book The Cross of Christ by John R. W. Stott
Jesus was a man who was accredited by God through miracles and anointed by the Spirit to do good and to heal. Despite this, he was crucified through the agency of wicked men, though also by God’s purpose according to the Scriptures that the Messiah must suffer. Then God reversed the human verdict on Jesus by raising him from the dead, also according to the Scriptures, and as attested by the apostolic eyewitnesses. Next God exalted him to the place of supreme honour as Lord and Saviour. He now possesses full authority both to save those who repent, believe and are baptized in his name, bestowing on them the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit, and to judge those who reject him.
Titus 3:4-7
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: What a joyful looking bunch!
Prodigal: They are believing in God’s promises.
Me: Amen!
This is from the book Believe and Rejoice by James P. Gills, M.D.
When we praise Him, we are filled with joy. That joy strengthens us in daily life, in our service, and in our work for God. When I do not have God’s joy, the day is very long, and I am less effective. When I have His joy, the day is easy.
I have to examine myself daily and make sure I am receiving His Word and resting in His love. I trust in God and rest in His control of my life. I let my relationship with Him govern my life. I must rest in His presence, not wrestle with Him for control. Then, when my heart is given over to Him in faith, I am naturally filled with joy. This joy is not something I can produce myself. It happens only because He is at work in me, and I believe in Him. He is in charge, and our relationship is in order.
The Lord who is my shelter! The Lord who is my protector! You have given me this wonderful day to rejoice in you for always!
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
John 15:11
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: How are you feeling today?
Prodigal: I feel like one wheel is off and the axle is draggin’.
Me: Maybe I can help.
This is from the book You Can Change by Tim Chester
Christians need never plateau. Many Christians grew quickly when they were first converted. They were full of enthusiasm and change. Then, after a while, they settled down into a routine. All the public, embarrassing sins have been swept away, but now there’s little real growth. If change could be represented as a line on a graph, their line has gone flat. Their behavior has changed, but their hearts go unchallenged. It needn’t be this way. Change is always possible.
Other Christians worry that they’re not growing when they actually are. Often growth in grace means a growing awareness of our sin. We see the dirt in our hearts all the more as we move toward the light of God. As with a computer game in which you progress up through various levels, so it is with sanctification. Level 1 sins are the obvious, clear sins that others see in us. By level 10 we’re becoming aware of subtle and deceitful heart desires.
Today is a day of growth and that is not a bad thing. It may be struggle but Christ is with you in your struggle. We are never with out encouragement and love during our struggles and neither are you.
Matthew 6:25
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: I am having a great time!
Me: Me too!
Prodigal: Let’s share a story.
This is from the book The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller
One of the most dramatic examples of this principle can be found in Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini. On a mission over the Pacific in 1943, Zamperini’s plane crashed into the ocean, killing most on board. After forty-seven days afloat in shark-infested waters, Louie and one other survivor were captured and endured two and a half years of imprisonment, which consisted of almost constant beatings, humiliation, and torture.
Returning after the war, he suffered from severe post traumatic stress disorder and became an alcoholic. His wife, Cynthia, lost hope for their marriage. Louie spent most of his time dreaming and planning about returning to Japan to murder “the Bird,” a Japanese sergeant who had repeatedly assaulted and tormented him in the camps. One night he dreamt that the Bird was looming over him. He reached out to defend himself. A scream woke him up and there he was, straddling Cynthia’s chest, his hands locked around the throat of his pregnant wife. Not long afterward, Cynthia announced to him that she was filing for divorce. he was distressed, but even the threat of losing his wife and child could not stop his drinking or his self-destructive behavior. He was too tormented by his past and his bitterness to change, even to save his family.
Then one day in the fall of 1949, Cyntha Zamperini was told by an acquaintance that there was a young evangelist, Billy Graham, preaching downtown at a special series of tent meetings. She attended and “came home alight.” She went immediately to Louie and told him she didn’t want a divorce, that she had experienced a spiritual awakening, and that she wanted him to accompany her to hear the preaching. After days of resisting, he finally gave in. That night, the young preacher’s sermon homed in on the concept of human sin. Louie was indignant. I am a good man, he said to himself. But almost as soon as he had the thought, “he felt the lie in it.” Several nights later he returned and “walked the aisle,” repented, and received Christ as Savior.
Zamperini was immediately delivered of his alcoholism. But more crucially, he felt God’s love flood his life and realized that he was able to forgive all those who had imprisoned and tortured him. The shame and sense of powerlessness that had stoked his hate and misery had vanished. His relationship with Cynthia “was renewed and deepened. They were blissful together.” In October 1950, Louie was able to return to Japan and speak through an interpreter at the prison where many of his former camp guards were now imprisoned. He spoke about the power of Christ’s grace to bring forgiveness, and to the prisoners’ shock, he embraced each of them with a loving smile.
Isaiah 55:4
Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Are you going to buy something Prodigal?
Prodigal: I would but if it cost a dollar to go ’round the world, I couldn’t get out of sight.
Me: I know these fair prices are outrageous. I will treat you though.
Prodigal: You are so kind to me.
This come from the book The Secret of Happiness by Billy Graham
From childhood to maturity we are always prone to do what we should not do and to refrain from doing what we ought to do. That is our nature.
That is why the disciples to the world were misfits. To an upside-down man, a right-side-up man seems upside down. To the nonbeliever, the true Christian is an oddity and an abnormality. A Christian’s goodness is a rebuke to his wickedness; his being right side up is a reflection upon the worlding’s inverted position. So the conflict is a natural one. Persecution is inevitable.
When Christ’s disciples began preaching that Jesus was the Christ, the people cried in consternation, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also”(Acts 17:6). Herein lies the fundamental reason for Christian persecution. Christ’s righteousness is so revolutionary and so contradictory to a man’s manner of living that it invokes the enmity of the world.
Don’t stop telling people about Jesus. I know they don’t understand but you never know who you are sowing the seed with.
Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
