Prayer And Prodigals

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Podcast. We're always live on location, but in an interesting way. James, you're down in Louisiana speaking at a prayers for prodigals kind of event, right?

Yes, I am. There's a very faithful group of believers down here who have been praying for prodigals for years, and they have seen hundreds come home. And I'm just so glad to be here. I often will do this, travel to different churches and encourage families that have prodigals to just stay faithful in prayer. And we see beautiful things happen as we do this. And I just look forward to what God is going to do.

The event starts tonight and then also tomorrow as well. But you know, Robbie, sometimes when someone you love is a prodigal, you feel lonely. You know, you don't know if anyone can really understand. You can feel like, gosh, can I bring this to church? Can I talk about this in church?

And absolutely you can. We want our churches to be that kind of place, right? Oh, man, I mean, that's, I, you know, I can't even express, you know, I'm sure that Satan would love us to buy that idea that we're alone in this. But if the church is exactly where, and one of the neat things that your church does is specifically, you know, pray for prodigals that mail in, you know, people that read the book, right?

Right, right. We have on jamesbanks.org a prodigal prayer wall, and we have people write in from all over the world. And we have a prayer team that covers those requests. And we also, you know, talk or pray for them in our prayer meetings. And this is an absolutely vital work. And the reason why it is so important is that if someone you love is a prodigal, then you know how to pray for someone else who has one.

Ruth Bell Graham said that once you love one prodigal, you love all prodigals. And when you come together to pray, the presence of the Lord is there, his spirit is there, his strength is there, and he is able to help us help each other in beautiful ways. No, I think it's absolutely the case I can remember all too well. When we were at the prayer event at the NRB, and we were with Carter Conlon, right, the pastor of the Times Square Church, and he asked you to help pray for one of his kids.

You ask him to help you pray for one of your kids, and I ask him to help pray for one of my kids. I mean, it's a fairly common situation. Yeah. And, you know, Robbie, one of the things that's so important as we think about this is letting go of shame and letting go of pride. Because, you know, the shame aspect is we feel like it's something that we've done. But the truth is, kids make their own choices. I heard someone say once about prodigals, if your kids are doing well, if your kids are doing well, then don't take the credit. But if they're being a prodigal, don't beat yourself up. And I think that is so true, because so often, you know, we live vicariously through our children, and they're doing well, and we take the credit, and we get the sense of pride about us.

Maybe that isn't healthy. There's healthy pride with our kids. But sometimes there's that, well, I must have done something right, you know. And, really, we just need to have humble hearts before God. Because as we do that, then we get to see what He alone can do. And that's where it really gets exciting. Oh, it does. And I think about the book that you did with your son, Jeff, that came out about a year ago.

Yeah, Hope Lies Ahead. I mean, it was all about that. It was all about that.

As I read it, I couldn't help but think, yeah, this doesn't have anything to do with James. This had to do with things that he was working out in his life. And, you know, not to mention that God's kid, Adam, had his struggles. He had pretty good upbringing.

Yeah. I mean, think about it. The parable of the prodigal son, when Jesus told it, it really is about the whole family of man. I mean, it's about God's search and rescue mission to save us. So, you know, who is the Father in the parable of the prodigal son? Jesus is the Father.

Jesus is God's love that runs to us and welcomes us home. And so, you know, as we pray for each other, when we have prodigals, if we come together in that sense of nobody's accusing, we're just going to love each other, and we're going to love our prodigals, and we're going to bless them. And you might say, well, how can you bless a prodigal? And the way that you do that is to pray for them to come to Jesus, to know his love, because there's no greater blessing than that. Well, this church that you're in in Louisiana, and Alexandria, from what I understand, they've been doing this event for a long time, and they've been doing this event for years and years. So as you've been there before, I'm very curious, and obviously they're very cognizant of your book and what it is. Is there a particular prayer or something where you feel they got great encouragement in order to do this? Well, the interesting thing is they've taken prayers for prodigals, my book, and they have prayed through it for 10 different seasons now. And so they'll do it a couple of times a year, and, you know, 90 days. And what they've done is just work through the book, you know, one day at a time. So you never know what God is going to use, but it's his doing. And I'm just along for the ride. And, you know, I'm kind of like the dog in the car sticking his head out the window and having a great time. Well, I hate we just flew through this episode, James, but I know our listeners would love if we could pray with them right now for their prodigals.

Let's do it. Lord, we thank you that you have a heart for prodigals, Jesus, that you are a friend of sinners. Lord, if someone who is listening is just in that place right now, we pray for your encouragement for them and for your help for their prodigal to love you and see you in a way they never have before. Father, thank you that you are good and that you and that you welcome us home to you. We pray that for our prodigals in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. This is the Truth Network.