Prodigal: I like the colors, made you should start over and choose other ones though.
Me: I’d sooner dive into a bed of poison ivy than do that.
Prodigal: Just joking.
This is a short video devotion on proverbs
Proverbs 6:28
Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: I have somewhere I need to be.
Me: We all do, but time together is always important.
This is from the book Voices of the Faithful by Beth Moore
Being new in the city of Jerusalem. I was culturally inept. Used to greeting people I met on the street, I quickly learned that many of my Orthodox Jewish neighbors wouldn’t greet me in return. Being a Gentile woman makes me unacceptable in a religious sense. While shopping in the Old City, a Muslim shopkeeper assisted me in a store. In completing the transaction, I thanked him and thoughtlessly extended my hand whereupon he solemnly explained that he was on his way to prayers and could not touch me.
Religiously, I am considered a contaminant to the people I live among. As I replayed these experiences in my mind, I saw my sinfulness in a fresh way. Yet new gratitude came for the Holy One. He is not defiled by me. Instead, in grace, He has actually imputed His own righteousness to me.
Several months after these experiences, my husband and I were walking when a man in Orthodox Jewish dress stopped us, asking if we loved God and knew how to pray. We affirmed our love for God, explaining that we pray to Him through Jesus the Messiah. He asked us to pray for him, saying that he needed to find peace with God. Finding a place where he wouldn’t risk being seen with us, we prayed for him. As we prayed, he reached out and held our hands.
Knowing one needs peace with God strips us of pride in the presence of each other and the One who died for us.
—A worker in Northern Africa and the Middle East.
Proverbs 20:3
It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Flowers make the day around us look prettier.
Prodigal: Yes they do.
This is from the book In the Grip of Grace by Max Lucado
Where the grace of God is missed, bitterness is born.
But where the grace of God is embraced, forgiveness flourishes.
The longer we walk in the garden,
the more likely we are to smell like flowers.
The more we immerse ourselves in grace, the more likely we are to give grace.
Proverbs 20:3
It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Your friend looks empty.
Prodigal: I think he needs to be filled with the spirit.
Me: Amen to that.
This is a short video devotion on proverbs
Proverbs 6:27
Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? (NIV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Look at the move I just made.
Me: That will get his dandy up.
Prodigal: It sure will!
This is from the book Saint Augustine Confessions
What, then, is the God I worship? He can be none but the Lord God himself, for who but the Lord is God? What other refuge can there be, except our God? You, my God, are supreme, utmost in goodness, mightiest and all-powerful, most merciful and most just. You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are unchangeable and yet you change all things. You are never new, never old, and yet all things yet all things have new life from you. You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud. You are ever active, yet always at rest. You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need. You support, you fill, and you protect all things. You create them, nourish them, and bring them to perfection. You seek to make them your own, though you lack for nothing. You love your creatures, but with a gentle love. You treasure them, but without apprehension. You grieve for wrong, but suffer no pain. You can be angry and yet serene. Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same. You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them. You are never in need yet are glad to gain, never covetous yet you exact a return for your gifts. We give abundantly to you so that we may deserve a reward; yet which of us has anything that does not come from you? You repay us what we deserve, and yet you owe nothing to any. You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby. You are my God, my Life, my holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? Can any man say enough when he speaks of you? Yet woe betide those who are silent about you! For even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you.
Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
