Prodigal: You know a bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn.
Me: Amen!
This is a short video devotion on Proverbs.
Click here to watch the video.
Proverbs 8:28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthen the fountains of the deep. (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Is God listening?
Me: Yes, God sees all right now.
Prodigal: Sometimes it seems hard to see that.
Me: Doesn’t mean it is not true.
This comes from the book The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisible present in all His works. This is boldly taught by prophet and apostle and is accepted by Christian theology generally. That is, it appears in the books, but for some reason it has not sunk into the average Christian’s heart so as to become a part of his believing self.
After accepting the Lord as your Savior the Holy Spirit dwells in you. That means there is always a connection to you and God. You cannot get lost to a place that He will not be able to find you. We cannot worry that the Lord has forgotten to be with us during the difficult day. We need wisdom and wonder. How can we find it? We have wisdom in us through the Holy Spirit. We are part of a body of Christ that is connected in so many ways we cannot understand. Look at life different today.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.
Isaiah 61:1
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: I am tempted to take a cookie when others backs are turned.
Me: Prodigal, I know what you are thinking. You should think twice about that action.
This is from the book The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis
Fire proveth iron, and temptation a just man. We know not often times what we are able to do, but temptation sheweth us what we are.
Yet we must be watchful, especially in the beginning of the temptation; for the enemy is then more easily overcome, if he be not suffered in any wise to enter the door of our hearts, but he resisted without the gate at his first knock.
When we are in the battle the first step can be just to recognize the knock of satan. Sometimes we forget that he was an angel and was very beautiful. He knows how to make things beautiful. He knows how to make us think that this choice is not a bad choice. Be watchful and do not answer that knock today.
Psalm 90:1
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: I just read something. Jesus turns a test into a testimony.
Prodigal: Amen to that!
This is a short video testimony.
Proverbs 8:27 When He prepared the heavens, I was there, When He drew a circle on the face of the deep. (NKJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Well that is fine as a daisy.
Prodigal: Yes, I’m excited to find out all that is in this box.
Me: Remember to thank others.
Prodigal: I will.
This is from the book No Easy Road by Dick Eastman
One one occasion, Muller traveled to Canada for a speaking engagement. Dense fog settled upon the ocean and the uncertain vessel floated motionless on a silent sea. Soon Muller knocked anxiously on the captain’s door expressing, “I must be in Toronto by Sunday.” The captain quickly replied, “In no way can this vessel move without assuming great danger of colliding with another.”
“I understand,” said Mr. Muller, “but in forty years of Christian service I have not failed to keep an appointment. I must be in Toronto Sunday!” He then asked the captain to join in special prayer that the fog lift. Embarrassed, the captain agreed. They knelt and Muller calmly asked God to lift the hindering fog. Somewhat intimidated, the captain said a simple prayer to please his anxious passenger. He no sooner began when Muller stopped him. He gently touched the captain’s shoulder saying: “You need not pray. You do not believe.”
Startled, the seafarer rose to leave the cabin with this unusual passenger. Walking out on deck, a look of sheer astonishment spread over the captain’s face. The fog had completely lifted. George Muller silently stood by with a “just as I expected” look.
Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.
Habakkuk 2:4
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalipig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Nothing has changed with the plants yet.
Me: No, but the growth will happen, just wait and see.
This is from the book Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster
To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives. The closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Christ.
We also will seek prayer when we need to change. God called me to forgive. It really was not what I wanted to do. I wanted to ignore the conviction in my spirit. I wanted to pretend that I had forgiven. God does not want our spirit to dry up like the leaves in fall. No, He wants us to grow, become alive. He had given me several different verses on forgiveness. I finally stopped the running. I acknowledge the call. I dropped to my knees in prayer. In that instance, I pray. I pray because I cannot forgive alone. I pray because my spirit needs help to focus on the things of God at this time. I pray because God, I need to change.
LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
Isaiah 25:1
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Wanted to share some good words today.
Prodigal: Let’s hear.
Me: Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
This is a short video devotion.
Proverbs 8:26 Before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. (ESV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Y’all are an interesting bunch.
Prodigal: Don’t forget to look at the heart.
Me: That should be our focus.
This is from Pastor R. Kent Hughes
How did Christ accept you and me? He accepted us with our many sins, prejudices, and innumerable blind spots. He accepted us with our psychological shortcomings and cultural naivete. He accepted us with our provincialisms. He even accepted us with our stubbornness. This is how we are to accept one another.
There is someone who needs to feel accepted. They need to feel accepted by you and accepted by God. They need to feel the warmth of love from you. God will show you that person. Then take time to really pay attention. Take the time to make a difference in their lives.
Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.
PSALM 98 : 5
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Your friend is stuck!
Prodigal: Yes, I know I need help.
Me: I will help you.
Prodigal: Thank you!
This is from the book Sister Freaks: Stories of Women Who Gave Up Everything for God by Rebecca St. James
Crystal Woodman’s biggest concern that Tuesday morning was her physics test. She hadn’t studied, and she needed every free minute during the day to cram. When lunch period started, she convinced her friends, Seth and Sara, to come with her to the library instead of going off campus as they usually did.
She had been actively involved in church and youth group as a child, but in high school Crystal had turned away from God to get involved in the party scene. After a few years of trying to be “cool” by experimenting with drugs, alcohol, and boys, Crystal began to see how empty her life was and went back to church. Not entirely committed to either lifestyle, she swung back and forth between the party kids and the church kids, drawn to the deep relationships she saw in Christians like Seth and Sara but also craving the popularity of the “in” crowd.
The three friends pretended not to notice the librarian’s glare and chatted as they found an empty table. Instead of studying, they joked around with a camera for a few minutes, enjoying each other’s company and the memories of prom the weekend before.
Slowly, they began to notice sounds and movements outside the library. Seth looked out the window, but the stream of students leaving the school looked like the usual lunch crowd. No one seemed to be paying much attention until a teacher ran into the library, screaming, “There are boys outside with guns and bombs. They’re shooting students!”
Crystal searched for an explanation: It was a senior prank. It was a student’s video project. Those were firecrackers exploding in the hallway. After all, nothing bad could happen there. They were in Littleton, Colorado, an upper-middle class suburb of housing developments, parks, and strip malls. People didn’t get shot there.
But it was April 20, 1999, and people were being shot at Columbine High School. As the sounds drew closer, Crystal watched a terrified classmate stumble into the library, clutching his bleeding shoulder. This was no prank. There was no time to escape. Crystal, Seth, and Sara took cover in the only place they could, under a library table. Seth puled Crystal’s head to his chest to protect her and whispered, “Start praying. I don’t know what’s happening. God is the only one who can get us through.”
Two boys with guns entered the library. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors at Columbine, began moving around the room, randomly shooting their classmates.
Crystal’s face was hidden in Seth’s shirt, but she remembers the sounds, smells, and feelings of the next few minutes. Gunshots and pipe bombs exploded around her, shattering glass and mixing with student’s frightened cries and the angry voices of the killers. She smelled the smoke from the pipe bombs and felt the floor shake with every explosion.
The voices drew nearer, and Crystal realized, It’s my turn to die. She heard a gunshot just a few feet away–a boy under the next table was killed merely because he wore glasses. For the first time, she thought she would not leave the Columbine library alive.
Crystal began to pray. “Okay, God, if You’re real, get me out of here alive. I will give You my life forever. I’ll quit partying. I will do anything. Just get me out of here. I didn’t understand then. I do now. It all makes sense now.”
One of the killers shoved in a library chair, and it hit Crystal’s arm. They had reached her table. But even as she thought about dying, a voice in Crystal’s mind told her, “God’s going to get you out. You have a story to tell. God’s going to get you out.”
The two shooters began talking to each other. They had run out of ammunition, and their extra bag of bombs and bullets was in the hallway. Without even looking under Crystal’s table, they left the library.
As soon as Eric and Dylan left, the surviving students began to leave through a fire escape. They knew the killers had just gone to reload; they would come back. In the instant before she left the library, Crystal looked around. “It was the first time I had seen the room. Everything had been shot up–the computers, the windows, the books–and little fires had been started from the pipe bombs. I saw the bodies of my classmates on the floor….and I knew that they were dead.”
Crystal and the other survivors in the library ran together out of the school. Not sure how many shooters there were or whether they were watching, Crystal and the other kids took shelter behind a police car parked just outside.
Eventually, police officers took everyone farther away from the school. Crystal was separated from Seth and Sara and started to weep uncontrollable. “Everything I had known for sixteen years–my innocence, my security, my safety–was just stripped away from me. I didn’t know what I had just seen; I hadn’t processed it all.”
Crystal joined the chaos, throngs of students wandering through the nearby park and shopping center, looking for phones to call parents or friends. It would take hours before everyone was reunited and the names of the dead were confirmed. Crystal walked across a field with Craig Scott while he looked for his sister, Rachel. They would later find out she was the first person murdered, shot just outside the building. Crystal would hear students telling the story of a classmate killed in a different part of the library after she affirmed her faith in Christ, without knowing right away that it was Cassie Bernall, a member of Crystal’s youth group.
She eventually found a phone and called her father, who met her near the school. She filled out police reports and eventually went home for a tearful reunion with her mother and brother.
Even in her pain, Crystal remembered her promise to God, and she stepped forward again and again to tell her story. She quickly became the unofficial spokesperson for the Columbine students. She was interviewed on Good Morning America. The Today Show, CNN, and all of the Denver area news outlets. Wracked with depression and plagued by nightmares, Crystal wouldn’t speak to anyone for weeks unless it was in an interview, but she found comfort in telling the world about how God saved her.
Over the coming weeks, as she worked through her own emotions, Crystal began speaking to groups–local churches at first, and then rallies, youth conferences, school assemblies, festivals, press conferences, and retreats. She became a living testimony of God’s promise in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” God took Crystal’s damaged, wounded spirit–the one that had seen so much pain–and used it to help others heal. Later, traveling to war-torn Kosovo with Operation Christmas Child (An outreach of Samaritan’s Purse), Crystal met children who live every day with violence like that at Columbine. That event, coupled with others, led her to dedicate her life to speaking.
She often quotes Genesis 50:20 when she speaks, a verse that so accurately describes her life and ministry: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
Crystal knows there are cruel and scary things in this world. But she knows also there is One who is stronger, and she is putting her faith in Him.
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
John 5:24
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Look who is with me!
Me: Here is something to remind you of today. As long as you know that God is for you, it doesn’t matter who is against you.
This is a short video devotion
Proverbs 8:25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodialpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
