“I don’t want this to be happening!”

The statement was repeated with an evident desperation by our young son as he came all the way down the stairs while holding out his thumb. What I saw did not match the terror in his voice. There was a small straight green line on the pad of his thumb that looked as if it was made by a magic marker. What I didn’t know was the green line was actually the flat part of a miniature staple, and the terror was because his young mind thought the staple was folded inside his thumb. An hour, many tears, many words of encouragement, and the staple was safely removed, the tears dried, and the terror soothed.

Recently, that was the theme of the sermon my husband gave at his father’s funeral. We definitely did not want that to be happening, but that was not solvable.

And that is the way I feel about prodigals. I don’t want this to be happening! I don’t want them to turn from God, make bad decisions, believe Satan’s lies, hang out with evil influence, become addicted, or alienate themselves from family. I don’t want them to suffer horrible consequences from their lifestyle and choices.

But something CAN be done, and we are doing it: we are loving them and praying to our God who loves them more than we do and wants them saved more than we do (2 Peter 3:9).

Keep praying!

I can hardly wait until they are saved and we can say, “I WANT this to be happening!”