Letting Go - Day One

If you live with a prodigal, you know what it means to love someone.

 

Love is a means of survival. Love is what gets you up each morning and inspires you to serve someone who acts like they hate you. Loving this way means duty, sacrifice, responsibility, and resilience.

 

Many years back, an R&B icon famously crooned a pseudo-love anthem to the world asking this skeptical question, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it?” If you live with a wayward person, the answer is a no-brainer: everything!

 

But there is a side of love that’s difficult to face. You’ve had a taste of it already if you are persisting in hope that this person you love might change.

 

This 4-day track featuring on the Catalyst App comes from Harvey Gilbert’s new book, Letting Go.

 

Maybe you were a prodigal. Maybe you loved someone who was or is a prodigal. Maybe someone you lead is struggling to continue loving the prodigal in their life.

 

Regardless, this aspect of our broken world impacts everyone. Over the next four days, we will look at some very practical ways of approaching the prodigals in our lives as well as receive the necessary encouragement to keep pressing on!

 

Complete the challenges at the end of each day to help process your journey on the Catalyst App and be entered in to win a copy of Letting Go.

 

 

---

 

DAY 1: LOVE HAS TEETH

 

When people talk about love, they tend to think about feelings of attraction, that joy and excitement of being with someone who makes you feel alive. However most of us know that this attraction is just scratching the surface. Real love is something deep and powerful, a committed faithfulness that is sacrificial and loyal. Love is keeping your promises, even when it hurts. It is patient and kind, gracious and forgiving, and willing to speak the truth even when doing so is costly (1 Corinthians 13:4–7). We know this love is tough.

 

But loving a prodigal is even tougher. It’s loving a rebel, someone who isn’t trying to work it out and who doesn’t have your interests in mind. It’s loving someone who is enamored with their sin and does not care about the consequences—the pain and hurt it causes others. As we’ve seen, wayward fools see themselves as the victim, and they are hell-bent on finding their freedom on their terms.

 

Prodigals need more than tough love; they need a rugged love.

 

A love that’s bold yet redemptive, forceful yet forgiving, gallant yet gospel-based. Think of it as love with teeth. For prodigals to change, those who love them must exercise a love that is courageous. They need to have conviction and a clear conscience. To love a wayward rebel, you need a rugged love that is rooted in the hope of God’s promises.

 

We offer the term rugged love not to pioneer a new way of loving but to bring fresh paint to the portrait of God’s unrelenting love in the Scriptures. Rugged love is the way God engages and reaches sinful people. We are all wayward, dead, and trapped in our sin. So the way we love prodigals must be patterned after the rugged love of God.

 

Challenge: Take a moment to reflect on these questions, then share your answer on the Catalyst App to one or both in the comments below:

 

1. How has God demonstrated His rugged love towards you?

2. How can you model this love to any prodigals in your life?