Sticking
With a Prodigal
For this
my son was dead,
and is
alive again;
he was
lost, and is found.
And they
began to be merry.
-- Luke
15:24
There's a fellow our age who left
home after his high school graduation and has never been back. He has lived all
over the world. He calls home occasionally. But for more than 30 years, his
parents haven't clapped eyes on him or been able to give him a hug.
He's the Prodigal Son . . . on
Steroids.
Now, there are SOME relatives you
WISH would take a long, long trip like that. . .
. . . but there are others we love very
much who, for whatever the reason, run away. They leave a trail of broken
hearts, late-night phone calls, frantic searches, and endless tears.
They're our prodigal sons and
daughters: lost lambs, gone astray.
But here's hope: when you love a
prodigal, keep praying . . . and never give up.
See, there was this teenage boy,
Kyle, from an excellent Christian family. He got involved with a bad crowd, and
started messing around with drugs and alcohol. Boom! He got hooked, powerfully.
It was as if he was paralyzed and couldn't break free of self-destructive
patterns.
His parents tried to correct him,
but he became disobedient, argumentative and rebellious. The younger three
children were terrorized. Everyone was miserable. It was heartbreaking.
The parents fasted. They prayed. They
moved Kyle to different schools and even tried homeschooling. But he was on a
different wavelength. They couldn't communicate with him. He was becoming a
stranger.
They finally became so frustrated
that they "delegated" this problem to God. They admitted that they were at the
end of their rope. Only God could save Kyle.
Then one day, they dropped him off
at a Christian summer camp.
Little did they know, he was at the
end of his rope, too.
That night, his dorm leader noticed
him "sitting there kind of dead-pan," and went over to talk to him. The band
was too loud - ironic, eh? - so they walked over to the campground.
Tearfully, the truth poured out of
Kyle. He admitted that he was running from God, but it had to stop. He admitted
all the wrong he'd done.
He recommitted himself to Jesus
Christ.
The youth worker said, "In a few
moments, God just changed his life, in such a way that those of us who are
trained could only hope to do in a lifetime of working with someone."
That's
the Holy Spirit for you. Effortless! Irresistible! The harder the case, the
more amazing the cure.
The youth leader said that for lots
of prodigals, things have to get worse before they can get better. "They've got
to hit rock bottom before they can look up," he said.
Under his mentor's wing, Kyle has
come so far that he now is leading his friends to the Lord, too. He is so
excited about what God is doing in his life that recently he knocked on his
mentor's door at 11:30 p.m., just to tell him something neat that had happened.
The process has taken about a year,
with twists and turns. But today, Kyle is living happily at home, clean and
sober. School is going well, college is ahead . . . and his parents call his
mentor regularly and tell him he's an answer to prayer.
He knows. But he's humble.
"Prodigals do need people who'll
stick with them, and establish trust, and love them and confront them," the
minister said. "But we can't 'fix' them. The church can't 'fix' them. Nothing
we can do is going to change a life.
"That's what Jesus does.
"A lot of times, He facilitates it
through relationships. But until there's a heart change, the behavior won't
change permanently."
What's his advice for those who love
prodigals? "Keep praying . . . and stick with them."
So you know that guy we know, who's
been inexplicably estranged from his parents and family for over 30 years?
Wherever he is, we're putting him on notice: we're praying for him and his
parents, we're sticking by them all, and we're trusting in God's promises that
prayer makes the invisible visible, and what seems impossible into beautiful
reality.
Hey, man: there's a fatted calf back
here with your name on it. See you soon! †
