By the Spirit 3--Lies Abound, Truth Prevails
June 2 and the Worldwide Prodigal Prayer Day will be here in a few weeks. Those of us who love and pray for prodigals prepare our hearts to bring our wandering loved ones and the thousands on the “pray-for” list to the throne of grace. This year our theme will be By the Spirit and this week we look at Truth. You are welcome to join us.
Our theme verse is Zechariah 4:6: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit…”
Dear Lover of Prodigals,
Lies.
One of the realities of living with and loving prodigals is lies.
How many times have you heard, “Why don’t you trust me?” Or “You can trust me.”
If our prodigal is an adolescent, a driver’s license opens the door for deception. We don’t really know where they are going or what they are doing.
If our prodigal is using or abusing, we can be sure of one thing: If he is saying something, he is probably lying.
They become masters of partial truth, deception, manipulation. They lie to our faces with utmost sincerity.
We lie to ourselves...
They are not the only liars: We lie to ourselves. We deny the severity of their addictions.We are sure our good training will cause them to make good choices. We choose to accept their explanations rather than face unwelcome facts.We believe what they say they are doing, who they are with. We bail them out of jail, certain that they will be grateful and change.And there is another liar: the Father of lies. Satan assures us we can trust them.
Then he accuses us of being terrible parents, that it is all our fault. He bombards us with hopelessness—our loved one will never change; she is gone; the rest of our lives will be misery.
There is one who speaks truth...
But there is the one who speaks truth: the Spirit of Truth..
In John 14:16 and 15:26 Jesus assures us this Spirit of truth will live in us. And in John 16:13 we receive this wonderful promise: But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.
He will speak truth to us and through us. We can have discernment regarding what our prodigals tell us.
We can even know things directly from the Spirit that enable us to intervene or rescue.The Spirit will reveal to us the lies we tell ourselves and enable us to walk in truth. The Spirit will confound the lies of the devil with the truth of God.Imagine! We have God’s Spirit of all truth, living in us, teaching us, guiding us.
As we prepare for June 2, we can be filling our minds with the Truth of God’s Word, giving the Spirit of Truth all He needs to renew our minds and change our lives.
And we can pray the same for our prodigals.
May the Spirit of Truth guide you into His truth.
By the Spirit,
Judy
How about you? Are you listening more to lies or to truth?
c2017 Judy Douglass
If you would be interested in requesting prayer for a prodigal loved one, or being a part of our wonderful praying community, respond in comments or write to me at PrayerforProdigals at gmaildotcom.