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A Prayer for the Prodigals in Our Lives

     So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:20 (NIV)

     The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.'” Luke 15:28; 31 (NIV)

     Dear heavenly Father, we praise, bless, and adore you for being the running and pursuing, welcoming and redeeming God that you are. Your mercies are new every morning; your grace is sufficient for every story; your love is powerful beyond our reckoning.

     Just as you have all kinds of prodigals in your family, so do we; and we appeal to you on their behalf today. For those in a “far away country” of pleasure seeking, responsibility evading, pain medicating madness—do what you must to bring them to their senses. If severe mercy is the only thing that will bring them to saving grace, then Father, be as severe as the wonders of your love necessitate.  If things have to get much worse in their lives, then give us the patience, trust, and assurance that you are at work. And should we be tempted to rescue them before your work is done, grant us grace and power to resist doing so.

     And Father, for our prodigals who haven’t gone anywhere but into the blindness of their self-righteousness, the smugness of their self-assurance, and the cocaine of their success and “intactness”, run to them, plead with them, and show them how much they need the grace of the gospel. Prodigals on an island of self-sufficiency are often harder to reach than prodigals on a hedonistic holiday.

     Father, lest we stay too mentally and emotionally preoccupied with our prodigal friends and family members, renew our experience of your compassion, embrace and “kisses” for us in the gospel. Our primary calling isn’t to fix anybody in life, but to know you, glorify you, and enjoy you forever. So may it be. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ wonderful and merciful name. 

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