"DID YOU HAVE NO FEAR WHILE LIVING AS A PRODIGAL?"
It is frightening, but basically not. Something might take place, as the Lord attempted to get my attention, and I would give some thought to what I was doing, but there would be no real change of heart. By the next day my life was back to monkey business as usual.
There was one incident that really caused me to stop and think. I was divorced, living and working 100 miles from my family. One evening, home alone, I developed severe stomach pains. As the night went on, the pain increased until I was doubled over. I was experiencing blinding pain and thought that I was going to die. Alone, with no doctor, I did not want to go to the emergency room. *
That night I did not call the other woman, I called Charlyne. I told her I was sick and that I had placed on my table the insurance cards and other papers she would need if I died. In classic Charlyne style, although it was after 11 p.m. on a weeknight, she volunteered to make the two-hour drive to be with me. I refused, and Charlyne said she would be praying for me. I spent that night with the front door unlocked and slept on a sofa downstairs in my townhouse so they would not have to carry my body down the narrow stairs from the second-floor bedroom.
Many standers have experienced serious disease and illness while living alone. You know some of the fear and desperation I am attempting to describe. There is a difference, because you have the Holy Spirit to be your Comforter. I laid on that sofa in the darkness, in as much pain as I had ever known, and thought, “Why would God even want to help me now after what I have done and the way I am living?†I confessed to God what I was doing and made Him another false promise.
The following morning the ringing phone woke me. It was Charlyne calling to check on me. She said she had been awake most of the night praying for me. I was pain free. Instead of following through with all the promises I had made God the night before and going back to my covenant wife who had prayed me through yet another crisis, that day I again turned my back on her and continued my search to find happiness in sin. This is something that will never happen for me, nor for your prodigal mate.
It is senseless and wrong for you to pray sickness or calamity on your prodigal. Doing so might be like going to a dermatologist for a heart problem. Give up attempting to pray for “skin problems,†such an eruption of superficial selfishness on the life of your loved one, and realize they have a “heart problem.†How should you pray? Pray that your spouse will repent for what they have done.
I pray that you can learn from this event that, until your spouse experiences heart felt sorrow and repentance (turning away) from what they have done, nothing else will stick. There may be a change for a few days or weeks, but until your mate’s heart is broken (by the Holy Spirit, and not by you) over what they have done to their family and to God, real restoration of your marriage cannot begin. Once God breaks the heart of your spouse, a herd of wild horses won’t be able to keep them from you. Are you ready?
“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws...Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake,’ declares the Sovereign Lord. ‘Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!’†Ezekiel 36:24-27, 31,32
God is so good. Although it has been years since either event happened, He reminded me of something today that I had never before considered. When I was sharing why I did not want to go to the hospital, the Lord revealed to me that this was the same scenario of the man I had observed in a hospital that the Lord used to get me to write my first book, Prodigals Do Come Home.
Because He lives,
Bob Steinkamp
Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc.
It is frightening, but basically not. Something might take place, as the Lord attempted to get my attention, and I would give some thought to what I was doing, but there would be no real change of heart. By the next day my life was back to monkey business as usual.
There was one incident that really caused me to stop and think. I was divorced, living and working 100 miles from my family. One evening, home alone, I developed severe stomach pains. As the night went on, the pain increased until I was doubled over. I was experiencing blinding pain and thought that I was going to die. Alone, with no doctor, I did not want to go to the emergency room. *
That night I did not call the other woman, I called Charlyne. I told her I was sick and that I had placed on my table the insurance cards and other papers she would need if I died. In classic Charlyne style, although it was after 11 p.m. on a weeknight, she volunteered to make the two-hour drive to be with me. I refused, and Charlyne said she would be praying for me. I spent that night with the front door unlocked and slept on a sofa downstairs in my townhouse so they would not have to carry my body down the narrow stairs from the second-floor bedroom.
Many standers have experienced serious disease and illness while living alone. You know some of the fear and desperation I am attempting to describe. There is a difference, because you have the Holy Spirit to be your Comforter. I laid on that sofa in the darkness, in as much pain as I had ever known, and thought, “Why would God even want to help me now after what I have done and the way I am living?†I confessed to God what I was doing and made Him another false promise.
The following morning the ringing phone woke me. It was Charlyne calling to check on me. She said she had been awake most of the night praying for me. I was pain free. Instead of following through with all the promises I had made God the night before and going back to my covenant wife who had prayed me through yet another crisis, that day I again turned my back on her and continued my search to find happiness in sin. This is something that will never happen for me, nor for your prodigal mate.
It is senseless and wrong for you to pray sickness or calamity on your prodigal. Doing so might be like going to a dermatologist for a heart problem. Give up attempting to pray for “skin problems,†such an eruption of superficial selfishness on the life of your loved one, and realize they have a “heart problem.†How should you pray? Pray that your spouse will repent for what they have done.
I pray that you can learn from this event that, until your spouse experiences heart felt sorrow and repentance (turning away) from what they have done, nothing else will stick. There may be a change for a few days or weeks, but until your mate’s heart is broken (by the Holy Spirit, and not by you) over what they have done to their family and to God, real restoration of your marriage cannot begin. Once God breaks the heart of your spouse, a herd of wild horses won’t be able to keep them from you. Are you ready?
“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws...Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake,’ declares the Sovereign Lord. ‘Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!’†Ezekiel 36:24-27, 31,32
God is so good. Although it has been years since either event happened, He reminded me of something today that I had never before considered. When I was sharing why I did not want to go to the hospital, the Lord revealed to me that this was the same scenario of the man I had observed in a hospital that the Lord used to get me to write my first book, Prodigals Do Come Home.
Because He lives,
Bob Steinkamp
Rejoice Marriage Ministries, Inc.
