Prodigal: How is it going?
Me: I’m jus’ chuggin’ long.
This is from the book The Soul Winner by C.H. Spurgeon
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities,
And cries, It shall be done.
Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart. Ecclesiastes 7:7 (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: What are you looking at?
Prodigal: Looking upward.
This is from Oswald Chambers
Psalm 121 portrays the upward look: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills–from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (verse 1). The upward look of a mature Christian is not to the mountains, but to the God who made the mountains. It is the maintained set of the highest powers of a man–not stargazing till he stumbles–but the upward gaze deliberately set toward God. He has got through the choppy waters of his elementary spiritual experience and now he is set God. “I have set the LORD always before me” (Psalm 16:8)–but you have to fight for it.
Then Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, “Stand up among us.” Mark 3:3 (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: What’s your tail in a knot about.
Me: Not a lot of broccoli, but I need to be thankful for what I got!
Today we have a video devotion on Proverbs.
Proverbs 15:6 In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, But in the revenue of the wicked is trouble. (NKJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: That was a game!
Me: I agree!
This is from Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver
“True love hurts,” Mother Teresa once said. “It always has to hurt.” And elsewhere she has written pointedly, “If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices.” For many years, this tiny nun and her followers went out of their way to minister to the dying–first in Calcutta, India, and later around the world. Their ministry went far beyond simply holding hands and praying. They physically carried broken bodies in off the streets. They sponged out foul-smelling wounds. They got down on their knees to mop up accidents. They tenderly spooned warm food into toothless mouths.
Now that Mother Teresa is gone from this earth, her Missionaries of Charity still continue the work she began–work that again and again goes out of its way to love and serve. Why do they do it? If you ask them, their answer is clear and confident: “We do it because Jesus did.” And so must we.
Once again Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man with a withered hand was there. Mark 3:1 (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: We got our ducks in a row so we are ready to listen.
Me: Good, I hope you enjoy!
This is from Ernest Borgnine
Back in 1975 I was offered a part in the film Jesus of Nazareth, which through the years has been shown at Easter time on NBC television. Our cast, directed by the renowned Franco Zeffirelli, included Anne Bancroft as Mary Magdalene and Olivia Hussey as Mary, mother of Jesus. I played the part of the centurion who was present at the crucifixion, the one whose servant had been healed by Jesus.
Much of the film was shot in Tunisia on the Mediterranean during January and February of 1976. A cold, damp wind continually knocked over floodlights and stung us with desert sand. I was uncomfortable in my thick leather uniform. My neck ached under a ponderous metal helmet, and I even began to pity those ancient Roman soldiers who were called centurions because they commanded a hundred men.
When it came time for my scene during the crucifixion, the weather was chill and gray. The camera was to be focused on me at the foot of the cross, and so it was not necessary for Robert Powell, the actor who portrayed Jesus, to be there. Instead, Zeffirelli put a chalk mark on a piece of scenery beside the cameraman, “I want you to look up at that mark,” he told me, “as if you were looking at Jesus.”
“Okay,” I said, moving into position and looking up at the mark as instructed.
“Ready?”
I hesitated. Somehow I wasn’t ready. I was uneasy.
“Do you think it would be possible for somebody to read from the Bible the words Jesus said as He hung on the cross?” I asked.
I knew the words well from the days of my childhood in an Italian-American family in Connecticut, and I’d read them in preparation for the film. Even so, I wanted to hear them now.
“I will do it myself,” Zeffirelli said. He found a Bible, opened it to the Book of Luke, and signaled for the camera to start rolling.
As Zeffirelli began reading Christ’s words aloud, I stared up at the chalk mark, thinking what might have gone through the centurion’s mind.
That poor Man up there, I thought. I met Him when He healed my servant, who is like a son to me. Jesus says He is the Son of God, an unfortunate claim during these perilous times. But I know He is innocent of any crime.
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” The voice was Zeffirelli’s, but the words burned into me–the words of Jesus (Luke 23:34-46).
Forgive me, Father, for even being here, was the centurion’s prayer that formed in my thoughts. I am so ashamed, so ashamed.
“Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise,” said Jesus to the thief hanging next to Him.
If Jesus can forgive that criminal, then He will forgive me, I thought. I will lay down my sword and retire to my little farm outside of Rome.
Then it happened.
As I stared upward, instead of the chalk mark, I suddenly saw the face of Jesus Christ, lifelike and clear. It was not the features of Robert Powell I was used to seeing, but the most beautiful, gentle visage I have ever known. Pain-seared, sweat-stained, with blood flowing down from thorns pressed deep, His face was still filled with compassion. He looked down at me through tragic, sorrowful eyes with an expression of love beyond description.
Then His cry rose against the desert wind. Not the voice of Zeffirelli, reading from the Bible, but the voice of Jesus Himself: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
In awe I watched Jesus’ head slump to one side. I knew He was dead. A terrible grief welled within me, and completely oblivious of the camera, I started sobbing uncontrollably.
“Cut!” yelled Zefirelli. Olivia Hussey and Anne Bancroft were crying too. I wiped my eyes and looked up again to where I had seen Jesus–He was gone.
Whether I saw a vision of Jesus that windswept day or whether it only something in my mind. I do not know. It doesn’t matter. For I do know that it was a profound spiritual experience and that I have not been quite the same person since. I believe that I take my faith more seriously. I like to think that I’m more forgiving than I used to be. As that centurion learned two thousand years ago. I too have found that you simply cannot come close to Jesus without being changed.
So they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress; he sent his word to heal them and bring them alive out of the pit of death. Let them thank the Lord for his enduring love and for the marvellous things he has done. Psalm 107:19-21 (NEB)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: That food drew me in like duck to a water.
Me: I hear you.
This is a short video devotion on proverbs.
Proverbs 15:5 A fool despises his father’s instruction, But he who receives correction is prudent. (NKJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: How pretty!
Me: God made all of this out of nothing. He can take care of you.
Prodigal: Amen!
This is from the book The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the LORD our God doth give us. Deuteronomy 1:25 (KJV). |
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Nice trophy!
Me: Yes, but don’t worship it.
This is from the book God’s Psychiatry by Charles L. Allen
We are told that “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). But to live a life in conformity with our creation is difficult. In fact, it is so difficult that all of us fall far short. Thus, instead of being like God, we seek to create Him in our own image. It is so much easier to make God like ourselves than for us to be like Him.
God tells us not to do wrong, but there are some things we want to do, right or wrong. So we create a God who doesn’t care what we do.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. John 15:6 (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Harvest day today.
Me: Don’t let the day light catch you in bed!
Today is a video devotion on Proverbs.
Proverbs 15:4
The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. (NIV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: I like your seagull friend.
Prodigal: Me too.
This is from In the Eye of the Storm by Max Lucado
To the onlookers, some things seem like an empty ritual, when to the person who is informed, they seem more significant than life itself. Take ol’Ed down in Florida. Every Friday evening about the time the sun is the size of a giant orange just about to dip into the water, ol’ Ed comes strolling along the beach to find his way to his favorite pier. He’s carrying in his bony hand a bucket full of shrimp. The shrimp are not for him. The shrimp are not for the fish. Strangely, the shrimp are for the sea gulls. Ed, alone with is thoughts, walks out to the end of the pier with his bucket, not saying a word. But that’s where the ritual begins.
Before long the sky becomes a mass of little dots screeching and squawking, making their way to ol’Ed there on the end of the pier. They envelope him with their presence. Their fluttering wings sound like a roar of thunder. Ed stands there and sort of mumbles to them as they’re feeding on the shrimp. In fact, he reaches in his bucket, and he throws a few up to them. You can almost hear him say, “Thank you. Thank you.” Within minutes, the bucket is empty. And Ed stands, there, almost as if raptured, in his thoughts of another time and another place. Then, without a word being spoken, he quietly makes his way back home.
Who is ol’Ed anyway? His full name is Eddie Rickenbacker. He’s was a captain in World War II. He flew a B-17 Flying Fortress. He and seven other men were sent on a mission across the Pacific to locate General MacArthur; however, their plane crashed in the water. Miraculously, they all made it out of the plane into a life raft.
Aboard their life raft, they fought the sun and the sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger, as all eight of these men ate and drank very little, until finally by the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They needed a miracle for them to survive.
After an afternoon devotional time, the men said a prayer and tried to rest. As Rickenbacker was dozing with his hat over his eyes, something landed on his head. It was a sea gull. That gull meant food… if he could catch it. And he did.
He tore the feathers off and they shared a morsel of it together. Then they used the intestines for fish bait. They were able to survive until they were found and rescued, almost at the end of their lives.
Later, Billy Graham asked Captain Rickenbacker about the story, because he heard that that experience had been used to lead him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Rickenbacker said to Billy, “I have no explanation except God sent one of His angels to rescue us.”
Ol’Ed never forgot. He never stopped saying, “Thank you.” Every Friday evening for years until he died, he would go to that old pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude for the rescue to say, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:2 (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
