“‘Why have you stopped dreaming My dreams? Who told you I would not come through?’ –God.”

This quote stayed on my refrigerator for a long time. I don’t know who said it or wrote it, but it is profound and applicable to this journey of loving and praying for a prodigal.

God has shown us some of His dreams for our prodigals’ lives, His giftings in them, His plans for them. It may seem like those dreams are no longer possible because of choices they’ve made and/or things they’ve done, but instead of giving up on those dreams, we pray them into being. We stand on them, believe them, and have faith that they will come to pass. As Romans 11:29 says, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (NKJV). Their choices and actions do not negate God’s plan, so why have we stopped dreaming His dreams?

We don’t have to stop, and neither should we.

Don’t stop dreaming for a godly spouse for your prodigal, someone that can minister with him or her in winning the lost to Jesus. It doesn’t matter what the situation looks like now. Don’t stop dreaming.

Don’t stop dreaming for holidays together.

Don’t stop dreaming for your prodigal to use his/her gifts and talents to win souls to the Lord.

Don’t stop dreaming for a united family, a family who will be a mighty fighting unit for the kingdom of God.

Don’t stop dreaming for a son or daughter, husband or wife, brother or sister, or friend who is free of addiction with healed brains, who looks for pleasure in godly things.

Don’t stop dreaming for the call of God on their lives to be fulfilled.

Don’t stop dreaming.

While our personal dreams for them are good and big, God’s are the best and the biggest! We don’t stop asking, because the Bible reminds us that God “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). We know this to be true, because “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19).

For these reasons and many more, we don’t give up on the dreams that God has given us for them. I’m not talking about wishful thinking—seeing a young woman you would like for your daughter to be like; seeing someone else’s son ministering, and you wish your son would do the same; or being a little jealous because another mother’s children are all serving God in their calling—but those dreams revealed to you by God.

Because of the PfP ministry, I hear of God‘s working in prodigals’ lives in ways that are wonderfully unimaginable. He has plans for your prodigal that are just as wonderful and ways to make them happen that are just as humanly unimaginable. So, go ahead and pray for your God-given dreams for your prodigal. Don’t give up.

Have hope, have faith, because “[t]he Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 145:9 NKJV, emphasis added), and because the dreams He gives are more real than the life you see them living now (see Hebrews 11:1). We can trust in His mercy, grace, and ability to save them, overcome every enemy, and fulfill every promised dream.