Reflections of Motherhood - Part 2

The Gift of the Prodigal Child

This is the second of three posts about God’s plan for Motherhood. See Reflections on Motherhood Part 1 http://heartjourneydebbie.blogspot.com/

·         “Mother means selfless devotion, limitless sacrifice, and love that passes understanding.”

Previously, I stated that Motherhood is a gift from the Father in which we GET to participate with Him in the creation of life. It comes with tremendous responsibilities, of which, being an imitator of Christ in all aspects of parenting has the most eternal effect on our children. It is very easy to discuss the virtues and blessings of Motherhood. However, an often neglected issue, especially in the church, is what to think and do when a child decides to live life in a way that is not honoring to the Lord. That is what I call the elephant in the room.

That elephant is the Prodigal Child. And some of you reading this are mothers of prodigals. I speak to you from a heart full of empathy. And I want you to know that Romans 8:28 still applies:

·         And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.

I am asking you to stretch your mind and your heart to the idea that a prodigal child is also a gift from the Father.

No one wants this kind of gift. In fact, it is the kind that feels like a slap in the face, that causes us to ask “Why?” “Why us, our family? I know I haven’t been a perfect mom, but I’ve tried, I’ve taken my children to church; I’ve modeled Christ-like behavior and attitudes; I taught my children to pray and take their needs to Jesus; I even led my children to know the Lord!”

Then our pride takes over, “I am embarrassed, ashamed and feel guilty about the choices my son or daughter has made!” “I sure don’t need to be a leader at church or teach SS; no telling what people are saying about us behind our backs.”

Then the enemy whispers, “I guess your relationship with the Lord isn’t what you thought it was or this wouldn’t have happened.” And you feel that God has let you down!

I think I have said enough to paint the picture of what can happen and many times does happen when a believer’s child decides to rebel against the family values you’ve instilled and against the Lord. That’s when feelings of anger, bitterness, and rejection are primed to take root in our hearts if we are not on guard.

As I stated, you may be one of those moms, or you know moms to whom this has happened. And you may know moms who are no longer involved in church or Bible study because they have a prodigal.

First, let me say this with utmost conviction: Shame on the church who shuns the family of a prodigal and or the prodigal. And shame on any believer who is a Pharisee in sheep’s clothing and doesn’t love on and pray for that family and their child. How will that person who is enslaved in Satan’s chains ever get free if those that are supposed to love him, pray for him, treat him like Jesus would treat him, turns their back and treats him like a leper?

That’s not being imitators of Christ. So how would Christ treat the elephant in the room? We have only to look to the passage in John 4 where Jesus met the women at the well.

You know the story:

·         It was the middle of a hot day at Jacob’s well, which was in Samaria. Jews didn’t like to go through Samaria, but Jesus did. The disciples had gone into town to get food and left Jesus alone at the well.

·         A woman came to the well at this odd time – probably to avoid the gossip and looks of the other women who came at the normal times. She was an outcast – especially by the religious!

·         Jesus asks her for a drink. She asks why He is asking her….she’s a Samaritan and a woman.

·         Jesus tells her that if she knew who He was she would be asking Him for living water which will spring up to eternal life.

·         She asks for that water and Jesus tells her to call for her husband. She had to admit she had no husband. But Jesus already knew that. Then He tells her about herself. She had been married five times and was living with another man at the time.

·         She is amazed by Him and believes in Him. She is so excited that she drops her water pot and runs into town to tell others. She brings dozens back with her to meet Jesus.

·         She was a prodigal, living a sinful lifestyle, but Jesus sought her out! He offered her salvation and love and acceptance. And it changed her life!

·         He accepted her – not her sin.

That’s how moms of prodigals and the church, individually and corporately, should treat our wayward ones. Loving on and embracing the person, but not the sin. Unfortunately, we do not always do a good job at this.

Now, Mom, what do you do when you are struggling with those feelings of defeat, guilt, anger, bitterness, shame? How do you respond to your child that has strayed?

The Bible gives us instruction in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Luke 15:11-32

Do what the father did. Again, you know this familiar story.

·         The younger son was rebellious and asked for his inheritance, which the father gave him. REBELLION

·         He left home to live life his way.

·         He squandered his money – probably on high living and prostitutes.

·         Completely broke and homeless, he hired himself out to a farmer who put him to work feeding the pigs (that’s irony for a Jew!)

·         He realized that his father’s servants were better fed and taken care of than he, so he decided to return home and ask forgiveness and ask to be one of the hired hands. (REPENTENCE)

·         The father sees him coming and runs to embrace him. (RESTORATION)

o   The father had been watching and waiting for the son to return.

o   As a devout Jew, he had been faithfully praying for this son to be restored.

o   He felt compassion for the son and began running to meet him.

o   He didn’t even let the son finish asking for forgiveness.

o   He celebrated the son and his return.

o   He didn’t ask questions or give a lecture that he had come to his senses!

o   He accepted his son and didn’t hold anything against him.

Obviously, this is a picture of man’s separation from God and God’s forgiveness and mercy when he turns his life over to the Father. We are to be imitators.

If your prodigal has returned, bless you! God has answered prayers and worked His power. Celebrate his return and hold no grudges, no “if only’s”, show the grace and mercy demonstrated by this father.

If your prodigal has not returned, bless you! God IS working to restore him, to bring him to his senses. Do as this father did – watch and wait patiently, never neglecting to pray with thanksgiving for that celebration day that is to come. Do NOT let anger, pride, shame, guilt or bitterness take root in your heart. Those attitudes will rob you of your joy, and your eyesight will be clouded – you may miss the opportunity to celebrate your child.

So, why is having a prodigal a gift? It is a gift that, if you’ll let it, will help make you more like Jesus.

James 1:2-4 – When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it a sheer gift, an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

God will use everything in your life, from the joys to the storms, to help mold you into the woman of God He purposed you to be. That includes wayward children and the choices they make. Whenever I focus on poor choices my children make, I see nor feel any joy. But when I focus on what God wants to do in my life through those choices, I can get excited! And when I pray with thanksgiving for my children, I can focus on the grand celebration that is going to take place when they allow God to have first place in their lives once again.

We looked at Motherhood as God’s gift to us. But Motherhood is also our greatest gift we can give our children. More on that next time.

 

The Choice is Ours To Make

Paul's letter to the Philippian church is a call to live out the Christian life joyfully - in the pleasant seasons of life as well as through the storms that come our way. Through the first two chapters, he crystalizes a concept that has been turning over in my mind, and I want to challenge each of us to give it serious consideration as we continue to traverse the journey set before us. The concept is about the choice we must make in order to live in the joy that Paul talks so much about.

Paul put into perfect perspective the choice we have as believers and followers of Christ Jesus. In Philippians 1:21 he says, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." His whole purpose in life was to speak out boldly for Christ and to become more like Him. Living means developing eternal values, living those values out, which brings the fruit of the Spirit into one's personal experience even in the darkest of days, and helping others find and live those values out through a personal relationship with Christ. When that is your heart's desire and your perspective on life, then dying is even better! In death, there is no more suffering, none of the "issues" that plague us, plus the fulfillment of seeing Christ face-to-face! 

If we don't choose that path, then we live in Philippians 2:21 where he says, "For they (those who are not believers AND those believers who do not fix their eyes consistently on Christ) all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus." Believers who seek their own interests are the ones who are overcome by the storms of life. They are drowning in their own self-pity, despair, depression, frustration, and/or anger because of what life has brought their way. These are the most frustrated, unhappy people on earth because deep in their heart is the Spirit's call to refocus their mind on the Christ - in whom they once put their trust.

Obviously, no one has reached perfection, and we won't until that day when He calls us home. So for now, it is impossible for us to live completely and solely in 1:21. However, we do choose from which perspective we strive to consistently live our lives. For some, it is a conscious, overt choice. For others, it has become a choice of omission. 

I know from scripture that each of us lives consistently in one of those choices.  We either live for Christ, doing our best and with the help of the Holy Spirit striving everyday to fix our gaze on Him and allowing Him to guide us in all that we do. Or we live for ourselves, giving an occasional glance His way. There is not much middle ground on this issue. We either are - or we aren't. 

This concept has really hit me as I ponder my life and the issues my family and I have been and are dealing with in the last year or so. There are things that I have not shared publicly because I am not at liberty to do so. But just know that you are not alone in facing down the giants of heartache and heartbreak. It comes to all of us as seasons we must pass through. Let's choose to live in 1:21 and live for Christ in the good times and the bad. And let's choose to be burdened believers as Epaphroditus was - burdened for the needs and concerns of others (Philippians 2:25-30). And let's choose the Word of God and prayer as our spiritual weapons to use to spread our faith and defend our faith and that of our sisters in Christ. When we choose to live for Christ, we are choosing joy!

A Fork in the Road...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

I grew up six miles from the sandy banks of the Red River in North Texas. Nocona was a wonderful place - a small town where everyone knew everyone, where it was safe to walk or bike the streets even after dark, a safe place that definitely felt like home. However, small towns do have some drawbacks - everyone knew everyone or at least, everyone's parents! And like most small towns, there was not a lot of things for teenagers to do - no movie theatre or bowling alley and 50 miles from the nearest shopping mall. So our main pasttime outside of school activities was driving the drag. For us, the drag went down Hwy. 82 from the Nocona Boot Factory to the city park on the west side of town with the Dairy Queen right dab in the middle.

On some occasions, my friends and I would load up and go outside the city limits to explore the river valley. We would drive those back roads hoping not to get stuck in the thick, red sand (been there, done that, wasn't fun!). The thing about those roads was that they twisted and turned, and it was easy to get turned around or even "lost." Another thing about those roads was that they were notorious for the "fork in the road." We would get to one of those forks and try to decide which tine of the fork would most likely take us to our intended target. Invariably, we would choose wrong - and because of all those darn twists and turns we might end up back in town rather than the sandy beach by the burned out bridge. If only we had had Google maps back then! But back then, we couldn't see past the fork, so we had to make a choice as to which way we would go.

Isn't that just like life? Ever so often in life, we come to a fork in the road - a time and place where we must make a choice. Some forks are more important than other ones, but all of them have a cause-and-effect relationship on the path our lives take. Make the wrong choice, there are consequences to live with; make the right choice, life is blessed.

Joshua 2 and 6:22-27 tells the story of Rahab, a prostitute in the city of Jericho. In chapter 2, Rahab came to a fork in the road of her life when Joshua sent two men to spy out the city as they were making their plans for conquest. The men encountered Rahab, whose house was literally built into the wall surrounding the city. She took them into her family's home and hid them from the king's soldiers who came looking for them. She lied and told the soldiers they were no longer there but had gone out into the hills, which led the soldiers on a two or three day wild goose chase. In the meantime, Rahab solicited a promise from them that they would return the favor of protection when the Israelites conquered the city and protect Rahab and her family.They agreed, and gave her a scarlet cord to hang in her window. That would be the sign their army would look for and when found, they would not distroy her family.

And that's exactly what happened. After Joshua's army had marched around the walls of Jericho seven times on that seventh day, Joshua gave the shout, the trumpets blew, and the walls of the city fell down flat (Joshua 6:15-21). In the midst of the chaos of the the Israelite army destroying everything but the silver and gold within the city, he sent the two men to the window with the red cord to rescue Rahab and her family.

Because of her choice to help the spies, Joshua decreed that Rahab and her family would live among the Chilldren of Israel for ever. And they did. In fact, Rahab is listed in Matthew 1 as the father of Boaz - the Jewish husband of Ruth; she was the great great-grandmother of King David! She is in the lineage of Jesus Christ - because of the choice she made at that fork in her road of life.

When Rahab came to that fork - a time when she had a most important, but difficult choice to make - what caused her to decide to side with the spies? I mean, she was a prostitute living and profitting from a pagan society worshiping false idols. She tells us plainly:

• ...she said to the men, "I know that God has given you the land. We're all afraid. Eveyone in the country feels hopeless. We heard how God dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you left Egypt, and what he did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan...We heard it and our hearts sank. We all had the wind knocked out of us. And all because of you, you and God, your God, God of the heavens above and God of the earth below...Josh 2:9-11 The Message

Rahab the harlot, a worshiper of many gods, had heard about the one, true God, the Lord God, and she believed in that God and His power. She knew that none of her gods could stop the Lord God from fulfilling His plan, thus, acknowledging the supremacy of God.

She chose to believe.

Rahab, the harlot, a worshiper of many gods, also put her faith in her new-found Lord God. She trusted Him that through her protection of the two spies, He would protect her and her family from the complete devastation that was about to befall Jericho. Her symbol of that faith was the scarlet cord she hung in her window.

She chose to have faith.

When Rahab came to that fork in the road, her choices to believe and to have faith in the Lord God and His provision transformed her life. What happened to her, inside of her, is best explained in these words from Paul:

• This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Cor. 5:17 NLT

Rahab's profession of belief and faith in the Lord God, changed her. She was transformed from a harlot in the streets of Jericho to a blessed mother in the family tree of Jesus Christ!

My friend, don't ever think that what you have done or how you are defined is so bad that you have no hope. When you think God is so disgusted with you that He won't have anything to do with you, remember Rahab. He looked past how Rahab had lived and into her heart - and what He saw was faith - in His existence, His sovereignty, His power, and His provision.  And His transformational power changed her and saved her.

Rahab went against all odds and was the only person in Jericho to choose belief and faith.

When you come to those forks in your road of life, think on the words of Joshua:

• Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Josh 1:9

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost