Definition

 

Me: Howdy!

Prodigal:  Are you enjoying your day?

Me:  Yes, I had to get away from the neighbors.

Prodigal:  How come?

Me:  They’re louder than Grandpa’s Sunday tie.

Prodigal:  Lord have mercy, that sounds like an interesting bunch.

Me:  You can say that again.

Prodigal: What have you been reading?

 

This is from the book Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias

 

The popular Western view of the word Islam meaning “peace” is neither accurate nor Qur’anic.  Qur’anically speaking, Islam means “submission” or “surrender,” but certainly not “peace” by any definition.

 

Only Jesus can bring you peace.

 

Romans 9:37

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

When You Thought I Wasn’t Looking

Me:  Are you having fun Prodigal?

Prodigal:  I am enjoying watching the pig races!

Me:  I am too!  I have picked out a couple of winners.

Prodigal:  I was surprised but yes, you did!

Me:  Let me share a poem to celebrate

 

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another one.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you feed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you make my favorite cake just for me, and I knew that little things are special things.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I heard you say a prayer, and I believed there is a God I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I felt you kiss me good night, and I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw tears come from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it’s all right to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw that you cared, and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I looked…and wanted to say thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn’t looking.

 

by Mary Rita Schilke Korzan

 

Psalm 27:14

Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Be Steadfast

 

Me:  What are you doing today Prodigal?

Prodigal:  I am trying to focus on what the Lord would have me to focus on.

Me:  Maybe I can help.

 

This comes from the book Beyond Our Selves by Catherine Marshall

 

Crisis brings us face to face with our inadequacy and our inadequacy in turn leads us to the inexhaustible sufficiency of God.  This is the power of helplessness, a principle written into the fabric of life.

 

Lord I am humbled right now because I have no idea how to move forward with  your direction and your life given love.  I am lost and I am needy.  Please guide me and do not leave me to myself.

 

1 Corinthians 15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

 

 

Kind of Warning

 

Me: How was your day today Prodigal?

Prodigal:  I was runnin round like a crazed squirrel in a cage of hungry dogs.

Me:  Sounds exhausting, maybe I can encourage you while you relax.

Prodigal:  Sounds good!

 

This is from the book Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders

 

God wants to show such people how strong He really is (2Chronicles 16:9).  But not all who aspire to leadership are willing to pay such a high personal price.  Yet there is no compromise here:  in the secret reaches of the heart this price is paid, before any public office or honor.  Our Lord made clear to James and John that high position in the kingdom of God is reserved for those who hearts–even the secret places where no one else probes–are qualified.  God’s sovereign searching of our hearts, and then His call to leadership, are awesome to behold.  And they make a person very humble.

One last thing must be said, a kind of warning.  If those who hold influence over others fail to lead toward the spiritual uplands, then surely the path to the lowlands will be well worn.  People travel together; no one lives detached and alone.

 

Make sure God is in the decision for which leader you are going to follow.

Psalm 89:3

I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

 

 

Complete Knowledge

Me:  How is your friend?

Prodigal:  Good, but his discernment is like a blind man judgin’ colors.

Me:  Well, don’t be to hard on him.  Maybe he just needs to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading.

Prodigal:  Yeah, I agree.

This comes from the book You Were Born for This by Bruce Wilkinson

The Spirit, who “searches all things,” has intimate, complete knowledge of everyone, including the people He sends us to help.  He knows what they were thinking when they woke up, what happened to them at work yesterday, and what secrets they plan to keep until they die.  He knows what kind of gift or encouragement they’re likely to refuse or deflect and what kind of gesture will go straight to their heart.

 

We can spend our lives running around trying to encourage others but it may all be for nothing if we did not consult the spirit for that day.  All it can take is quiet time in God’s word and prayer and which can lead you to the type of encouragement that changes a person’s day, week or life.

 

Chapter 14:1

Follow after love, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

 

Divine Doctor

 

Me:  I see you have a message!

Prodigal:  I just trying to deliver the bacon without all that sizzle.

Me:  Trying to get to the bottom line.

Prodigal:  That’s right.

Me:  While you wait for a response then I will share a story.

 

This is from the book God’s Little Devotional Book for Women

 

Tom Dooley was a young doctor who gave up an easy career to organize hospitals and pour out his life in service to afflicted people in Southeast Asia.  As he lay dying of cancer at age 34, Dooley wrote to the president of Notre Dame, his alma mater:

“Dear Father Hesburgh:  They’ve got me down.  Flat on the back, with plaster, sandbags, and hot water bottles.  I’ve contrived a way of pumping the bed up a bit so that , with a long reach, I can get to my typewriter…Two things prompt this note to you.  The first is that whenever my cancer acts up a bit…I turn inward.  Less do I think of my hospitals around the world, or of 94 doctors, fund-raisers, and the like.  More do I think of one Divine Doctor and my personal fund of grace….I have monstrous phantoms; all men do.  And inside and outside the wind blows.  But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around me does not matter.  The winds within me do not matter.  Nothing human or earthly can touch me.  A peace gathers in my heart.  What seems unfathomable, I can fathom.  What is unutterable, I can utter.  Because I can pray.  I can communicate.  How do people endure anything on earth if they cannot have God?”

 

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:7

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

In Time of Perplexity

 

Me:  Howdy! Prodigal.

Prodigal:  Howdy, I would love for you to take a walk with me!

Me:  I would like that and I can share with you also.

 

This is from the book Joy In Christ’s Presence by Charles Spurgeon

 

There was never a problem so difficult to solve as that which is answered in redemption.  The tremendous difficulty was in this:  How can God be just and yet be the Savior of sinners?  How can He fulfill His declarations against evil and yet forgive sin?  If that problem had been left to angels and men, they could never have worked it out throughout eternity.  But God has solved it by freely delivering up His own Son.

In the glorious sacrifice of Jesus we see the justice of God magnified.  He placed the whole weight of sin on the blessed Lord, who had become one with His chosen people.  Jesus identified Himself with His people, and therefore their sin was laid upon Him, and the sword of the Lord awoke against Him.  He was not arbitrarily to be a victim, but He was a voluntary Sufferer.  His relationship amounted to covenant oneness with His people, and “it behoved Christ to suffer”(Luke 24:46).

 

Psalms 9:7-8

But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Pruning Time

Me:  Who is your friend there?

Prodigal:  He is the GREATEST wrestler in the whole wide world.

Me:  Who says that?

Prodigal:  He tells me that all the time.

Me:  If he keeps pattin’ himself on the back, he’s goin’ to break his arm.

Prodigal:  Maybe we should just focus on Christ.

Me:  I agree!

 

This is from the book Overcoming Spiritual Blindness by James P. Gills, M.D.

Referring to the analogy at hand, either to prevent or to bring us out of spiritual backsliding, the Father continually prunes our branch.  The vinedresser sometimes cuts a branch vigorously in order to encourage fruitfulness.  This pruning means that God brings painful experiences into our lives to make us seek Him more earnestly.  And those who are already bearing fruit are pruned so they may bear even more fruit.  In times of suffering you often have nothing else to hold to other than this reality.  Through the pruning, you will come to a new awareness, as the prodigal son did, and seek greater communion with Christ.  He “grafts” us into Him so that we can draw life from Him.  This fellowship with Christ gives us the strength to persevere and grow, and to rejoice in the midst of our trials.

 

When life goes down that path that looks like a dead end.  Do we turn from our Father?  Or do we praise Him knowing that even with a path of suffering he can bring sunshine and a blessing.

 

Romans 8:28

And we know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Turn the Other Cheek

 

Me:  Enjoying your walk Prodigal?

Prodigal:  Yeah, but I’ve got more pains than a house full of old windows.

Me:  As you rest than let me share a story.

 

This is from God’s Little Devotional Book for Women

 

Ruth Bell Graham tells a humorous story about her daughters, Anne and Bunny.  When Ruth ran to the kitchen to investigate some loud cries, she found three-year-old Bunny holding her hand to her cheek, looking very disapprovingly at her sister.  “Mommy,” explained five-year-old Anne, “I’m teaching Bunny the Bible.  I’m slapping her on one cheek and teaching her to turn the other one so I can slap it too.

When we are wronged, our first response is more likely to fight back than to turn the other cheek.  But many have found that fighting back can be counterproductive.

Missionary E. Stanley Jones was being publicly slandered by someone he had once helped.  Jones’ first response was to write his accuser a letter he relates was “the kind of reply you are proud of the first five minutes, the second five minutes you’re not so certain, and the third five minutes you know you’re wrong.”

Jones knew his comments would win the argument, but lose the person.  “The Christian,” he said, “is not in the business of winning arguments, but winning people,”  and he tore up the letter.  A few weeks later–without having said a word–Jones received a letter of apology from the one who had turned on him.

 

Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles

Proverbs 21:23

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.faithincounseling.org

www.theprodigalpig.com

 

Community of Grace

 

Me:  Are you having fun with chalk?

Prodigal:  Yes, it can be relaxing.  Sometimes we just need to let loose.

Me:  As you finish, I will share.

 

This is from the book You Can Change by Tim Chester

 

The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.  So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship.  We are not allowed to be sinners.  Many Christians are unthinkable horrified when a real sinner is discovered among the righteous.  So we remain alone with our sin, living the lies and hypocrisy.  But the fact is, we are sinners.

 

More is done with a group of sinners than with a group of hypocrites.  Who did Jesus go to?  Who did he turn and walk away from?  Who did Jesus die for?  See He died for both the hypocrites and the sinners but only the sinners really understand that and praise Him for that!

 

Acts 20:31-36

 

Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

And now brethren, I commend  you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel.

Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.

I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org