Welcome to week 3! This week really highlights the positive aspects of the story. We are spending the rest of our time together focusing on the Father, and He will leave you in awe.
I’d like to introduce you to a pair of inter-related parallels which can be better appreciated now have a fairly good handle on the text.
Back in week one, I suggested that the prodigal son parable was a parallel to Jesus’ own ministry. The parallels don’t end there! Let’s push ourselves a bit more and extrapolate further. Let’s also consider that this is not the only story of exile in the Bible, right? We have the exile motif all throughout the Old and New Testaments. There’s even a whole book dedicated to exile: the book of Exodus.
We not only have another exile-type narrative in the Prodigal Son, but we have a narrative which is actually a microcosm for the entire Bible! Think about it! The entire Bible is one entire exodus story…a story between two gardens (in Genesis and then in Revelation), wherein God is revealing how His lost children find their way back home to Him through Jesus.
Remarkable! The Prodigal Son is a stand-in for the entire Bible!
OK. Ready for one more parallel? Let’s take this same metaphor one step further. If the Bible is the story of how God’s children get reconciled back to Himself, which is also the story of the Prodigal…then the Prodigal is also totally reminiscent of the entire human race.
We are lost. We need to be found. Going back to the Father through Jesus is how we get there.
See, I told you this “basic” story is more than it appears, even after many readthroughs! Have I made good on my promise to teach something new on an old story yet? I hope so! If not, you are certainly wiser than I am!
And believe it or not, we are still not done with uncovering what we can glean from the parable (even when the series is over, there will still be way more we haven’t touched on!).
Last week we learned how this is actually the story of two lost sons, not one. This week I want you to consider something else entirely: it’s a story about a father’s love.
We are going to explore just how well the father loved by looking at his reactions throughout the parable. You see, he really challenged norms in three main ways, and we are going to spend a day on each of those ways before wrapping up at the end of the week.
The next three days will be relatively short teachings, but they will offer lots to reflect upon for the reader who yearns to apply biblical principles to their life. Sound like a plan?
See you tomorrow!
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Now is the time we are going to take a closer look at the other two parables in Luke 15 that have to do with something of value being lost. In doing so, we will be equipped with some keen insight into this story of the two lost brothers.
In the first parable, we have a shepherd who goes out to find his lost sheep. That seems reasonable enough. Then, we have a woman who searches for a lost coin. In both instances, something is lost and someone sets out to find it. By the time the listeners heard the third story, they would have expected to hear the same pattern, but it never comes. No one searches for him. Why?
Jesus is highlighting what didn’t happen so the audience could process what should have happened. As rabbi, Jesus was certainly familiar with old testament scriptures. He would have known about another story way back in Genesis about another set of brothers. In that case, the older brother was also proud and resentful, and yet he was told that he was his brother’s keeper. It’s the story of Cain and Abel.
The elder brother in the story should have gone after the younger brother and restored him back into the family. Likewise, the Pharisees should go after the sinners and bring them into their spiritual family as heirs to the kingdom. Yet, they do not, and this older brother doesn’t either. The younger brother gets a Pharisee for a brother instead.
Can you see where this is going?
We have a perfect older brother in Jesus. He is sent by the Father to reveal God’s love for all His children and to offer Himself as the way home.
Just as we saw last week that Jesus was the younger brother without being rebellious, now we see that He is also the older brother without being resentful. He does His Father’s bidding and seeks to find those who are lost to bring them back home. Amen?! Amen!
Today, spend some time praying about how you can be more like Jesus as the perfect younger brother and perfect older brother.
There’s one more aspect to the older brother I want to introduce you to. It’s how the parable ends…or doesn’t end, rather. What do I mean by this? Let’s review it tomorrow!
-Helen
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We will never find God unless He first seeks us, but we should remember that He can do so in very different ways. Sometimes, God jumps on us dramatically as He does with the younger son and we will have an acute sense of His love. Sometimes, He quietly and patiently tries to get us to come around to His way of thinking, as in the case of the older son.
How can we tell if He is working on us now? If we begin to sense our lostness and find ourselves wanting to escape it, we can recognize that such an inclination is not something we could have generated on our own. Such a process requires help, and if it’s happening it’s a good indication that the Holy Spirit is already at work. That’s a great sign! That tinge of conviction is the feeling I warned you about on Sunday, but we agreed to press into the convictions as opposed to ignore them. Right?!
Also, through the grace and mercy of God, there is a way out of allowing sin to rule over us. It is through repentance. If you missed that day, go back to Day 6 to see what we mean by repent. Now, let’s look at repentance in light of the older brother.
When Pharisees sin they feel terrible and repent. You see, as pompous as they could be at times, they were first and foremost authorities on Jewish law and tradition. As such, they may have even punished themselves (I don’t recommend that extreme). When they finish being remorseful, however, they remain elder brothers. They didn’t quite nail down the idea of completely turning from old behaviors in favor of going toward God. They may have turned away from outward behaviors, but their hearts and minds remained unchanged.
Pride in his good deeds, rather than remorse over his bad deeds, was keeping the older son out of the party (i.e., salvation). The elder brother’s problem is his self-righteousness. In this particular instance of sin, we must repent of why we do things right as well as what we do wrong.
Did we take that volunteer role so we could look good? Did we share a story on social media because it elevated us, but not Him? Perhaps not, but if so, we must repent of the intentions behind our actions. If not, we risk staying an older brother. Pharisees repent of their sins, but Christians repent for the very roots of their self-righteousness as well. We must admit that we’ve put our ultimate hope and trust in things other than God.
Sit with this message for a little bit, if needed. It’s OK. Perhaps this is the first time that you’ve seen yourself resembling the older brother. Go to God with that, and allow Him to change you from the inside out. What do you need to repent of? An outright sin or perhaps something more beneath the surface?
The hardest part of this teaching to digest is now past us. Tomorrow we are going to focus on how the older brother figure relates to the character of Jesus, and you won’t want to miss it.
Thank you so much for going on this worthwhile journey with me today. You are all in my prayers!
-Helen
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By now, we’ve well established that there are two different kinds of “lostness” playing out in this parable: the outwardly visible variety and the more inward-facing variety. Also, remember that each brother corresponds to either the sinners or the Pharisees, so we also have another level of storytelling happening: Jesus is pointedly emphasizing out the weaknesses of each camp in his audience.
The older brother was spiritually lost (and, by association, the Pharisees). It’s much more elusive than the undeniable sinful life of the younger brother. Timothy Keller, pastor and author, dubs this as “Elder Brother Lostness”. The latter brings as much misery to others and the offender as being lost in a distant country.
Here, then, is Jesus’ radical redefinition of what is wrong with us. Nearly everyone defines sin as breaking a list of spoken or unspoken rules. Jesus though, shows us that a man who has violated virtually nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors can be every bit as lost as the most offensively sinful person.
How?
Because, in this light, sin is not just breaking the rules. It occurs when we elevate ourselves to a place that is only reserved for God: a place of judgement. It occurs when we believe we have “arrived” and totally get life, faith, and all the things (spoiler: we never will on this side of eternity). We may think we are incapable of sinning, or…at the very least, not as frequently and deeply as others. These are all symptoms of elder brother lostness.
Here’s a loving word of caution: elder brothers almost never even know they are lost. In understanding how this spiritual lostness manifests, however, we will be equipped to better see it in ourselves. If we don’t, we risk never being able to repent and change our prideful ways.
In this light, the younger brother has the advantage: there’s no denying he is lost. He can choose to go home. Older brothers, though? They haven’t a clue. They will remain in their sinfulness, aloof and unawares, blind to their fatal condition.
In fact, the older brother (and Pharisees) would have taken complete offense to the very suggestion that he was rebelling against the father’s authority. No one had ever taught anything like this before the parables in Luke 15.
Remember, this parable is aimed at the Pharisees. Jesus wanted to reveal to them who they were, as well as others who are ridden with pride, and urge them to change.
By the grace and provision of God, there is a way out of this type of sin as well, so all hope is not lost, even for those who suffer from elder brother lostness. That will be our focus for tomorrow!
All my Love,
Helen
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Last week we learned how appalling it was for the younger son to ask his father for his inheritance. However, once the older brother hears of his brother’s return and subsequent festivities in his honor, it became his turn to disgrace his father. The older brother was downright furious.
He refuses to go into the party, which, more than likely, was the biggest shindig his father ever hosted. By not going into the party, he is publicly declaring his disapproval. It would have been considered quite demeaning for the father to come out and plead with the older son as he did.
In that culture, the proper way to greet a father might have been something like, “Dear Father…” However, the older brother does not bother with courteous pleasantries. He goes right to the heart of his frustations and addresses his father with a mere, “Look!” We might envision someone waving their fists while yelling, “Look, you!…” while continuing with their tirade in today’s culture. In a society where respect and deference to elders was all important, such behavior was truly ill advised and frowned upon.
When confronted by his father’s joy at the return of his younger brother, we see a powerful resentment come to the surface. We were told how obedient the older son was, so we can surmise that such disrespectful behavior was out of the norm. Suddenly, there becomes a glaringly visible proud, unkind, and selfish person. The anger we see here was a slow burn over many years.
Let’s flesh this out a bit, because its imperative that we avoid the same type of sin when possible. Essentially, the older brother exhibits the stifled feelings of someone who feels they never got what was due to them. He was keeping tabs.
The older brother is especially upset about the cost of the party. It would appear as though the father spent more on the “sinful brother” than he ever did on the “obedient” one. The latter claims he never even had the pleasure of a goat at a party, never mind a fattened calf like the former. The fattened calf is only a symbol, however, because as the choicest, most expensive meat at that time, the calf would have symbolized abundance, pulling out all the stops, etc.
It was grace on top of grace.
Abundance and then some.
The father didn’t just accept the son back; he went above and beyond to knit him back into the fabric of their family and community.
The older son compares himself to the sinful younger brother. He supposes his role and blessing should be relative to others. He thinks he deserves grace AND also that grace should be withheld from his younger brother. For some reason, his brother’s happiness has a bearing on his own level of joy.
As opposed to a both/and scenario, only a either/or scenario plays out in his mind with regard to who can receive blessings and grace. There isn’t room for both sons at the feast (or both type of people as the Pharisees would see it). One has to go, and no one puts big brother in the corner. The Bible calls this self-righteousness, and it needs to be avoided at all costs.
Have you ever compared yourself to someone else? Maybe justify an action by saying, “At least as I’m not as bad as that Karen over there…” Be careful. God sees all sin the same, and herein lies a blind spot for most of us: thinking too little of our sin can keep us from experiencing the fullness of the love of God in the same way that thinking too much of it can.
So, regardless of if we think we’ve sinned too much to come back to God (like the choice we spoke about last week) or we don’t really think our sin is that bad or even existent at all, the Bible unilaterally calls us to repentance.
Now that we have an awareness that our pride and self-righteousness can lead to sin, as it did with the older brother, we are going to examine that particular kind of lostness more tomorrow. It’s one of the most important lessons in the entire New Testament!
All my Love,
Helen
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While this parable is commonly known as “The Prodigal Son” (I even call it this throughout the series), I’d like us to start to think of it a bit differently. You see, that name isn’t quite right. It’s misleading to single out only one of the sons as the sole focus of the story. Even Jesus doesn’t call it the parable of the prodigal son, but begins the story by saying, “There was a man who had two sons.” (Luke 15:11, emphasis mine)
In the younger brother character, Jesus depicts a variation of sin that anyone would recognize. He was openly disrespectful to his father and squandered his inheritance. No one would venture to say, “He’s a totally upstanding human being. Really solid guy. Totally dependable. He’s welcome to date my daughter.” No. People would agree in unison that the younger brother was living sinfully. The listeners would have considered this person to be cut off from God. We revisit the younger son only to highlight a stark contrast to the older brother character.
The latter is seemingly loyal to his father. He has the self-discipline that is so desperately lacking in his younger brother.
So, here we have two sons: one “bad” by conventional standards, and one “good.” Nonetheless, both are alienated from their father. How so? That’s exactly what we are going to unpack this week.
Each brother represents a different way to be alienated from God and a different way to seek acceptance into the Kingdom. The narrative is as much about the elder brother as the younger, and as much about the father as the sons….which is why I’ve decided to break these teachings up by character each week. Moreover, what Jesus says about the older brother is one of the most important messages given to us in the Bible.
Remember last week how we said that Jesus was talking to the sinners and the Pharisees when he told this story?
As it turns out, this parable was actually meant for the Pharisees. Although both groups can certainly benefit from the message, it is directed to the Pharisees. The sinners didn’t ask why Jesus was eating with them. The Pharisees asked, and Jesus responded with the stories documented in Luke 15. The three parables are in response to their attitude, which the Pharisees would steadfastly maintain was right with God. We will see how this was not the case and how Jesus powerfully pleaded with them to change their hearts so they could enter the Kingdom.
Let’s revisit a parallel we learned last week. The sinners are synonymous with the younger brother. But, as we just mentioned, Jesus was talking to the sinners AND the Pharisees.
Two brothers.
Two audiences.
If the sinners were the younger brother, what does that make the older brother?
That’s right. The older brother is synonymous with the Pharisees! That means how he sinned and how he reacted, which we will observe more closely this week, albeit differently than his younger brother, were similar to how the Pharisees sinned and reacted.
Make no mistake: just like the sinners realizing that the younger brother was really them imposed into the tale, the Pharisees would have also noticed. The Pharisees would have also pieced together that they were the older brothers, and they would not have appreciated what Jesus had to say about them either. A sinner being welcomed without restitution?! Nonsense! A clearly obedient and righteous man not getting what he earned?! Preposterous!
Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious (sinners and Pharisees) are spiritually lost, but Jesus was also ushering in a new way to live. One that offered eternal life to the repentant…One that offered a reason to press pause for anyone who thought they were above sin.
This parable of the two lost sons is a total gamechanger in every way. I’m here for it! How about you?
Same time, same place tomorrow? See you then…and bring a warm beverage of choice 😊
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I’m excited to start another week of learning, reflecting and growing with you all! If you are just jumping into the series now, we have been diving into the Prodigal Son. Last week, we focused on the younger brother as well as some really important context. This week, we are switching gears. We are going to examine the older brother figure and find out what he has to tell us about Jesus, the Kingdom of God and how to enter it.
While this story reveals the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother, it also condemns the elder brother…which is something I never picked up on until recently, no matter how many times I heard this story.
Here’s a gentle word of caution: hearing how the “obedient” older brother was also in the wrong may be convicting for some. It may sting. But that’s OK! I lovingly urge you to press into that and not run from it. Whenever we are convicted there is room for so much growth!
On the first day of this series I mentioned how a pastor once told me that nothing positive ever came from my mouth. That hurt. A lot. But do you know what? Although the words stung, and the delivery wasn’t the best, this particular pastor was almost never wrong when it came to calling people out. There was always some truth to what he had to say. After the sting wore off I asked God to reveal what I could learn from that comment. While it wasn’t true that nothing good ever came from my mouth, it turned out that there was definitely room for improvement. I could certainly speak life over people more often. My words could have more kingdom value.
By pressing into that comment, which I believe was said in love and not animosity, I was able to go to God and ask Him to deliver me from my actions which contributed to such negative impressions. I prayed that He would give me a new voice, a voice to tell others about Him. That was about 8 years ago. I’m so grateful I didn’t ignore the sting. You will be, too, if you take your convictions to the Father in prayer.
OK, thanks for letting me touch on that for a minute. I think we are better grounded to move on together. Agreed?!
This week we will pick up where we left off.
The younger brother left, which was a huge insult. He asked for his inheritance which was insult over injury. He was seeking a life outside of his father’s home. We learned that the distant country he travelled to is really synonymous with anywhere we are living where God is not our priority. We learned that we always have a choice to return to Him. Our Father will always accept us, BUT we have to choose to return back to Him through repentance AND accept his forgiveness. Anything else would be selling ourselves short and not letting God be God. Verse 21gave us a biblical blueprint for repentance: we apologize to the one we offended and to God….and since God is the primary offendee, He’s the one who can primarily restore us.
Jesus is redefining everything we thought we knew about connecting to God. He is redefining sin, what it means to be lost, and what it means to be saved.
That’s last week in a nutshell!
We now have all we need to start exploring the older brother. I promise, you’ve never thought of him like this before!
Looking forward to picking up from here with you tomorrow morning!
Helen
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Our first week is already coming to an end! Can you believe it?! Take some time to reflect on everything we’ve covered. What’s something new you learned? Or perhaps a standing perception took on a new shape since we’ve started our time together. That’s great! The Word of God is living so there’s always something else the Spirit can reveal from its verses.
Speaking of revelation, let me share something with you that totally blew my mind. Its one of those things that once you see it, you won’t be able to unsee it.
Remember back to the beginning of the week. I taught that parables tell us something about Jesus. Well, this one is no different. The last parallel we are going to talk about this week is about none other than Jesus Himself. Here it is:
Jesus became the prodigal son for our sake. If I were delivering this as a sermon, I would probably reiterate that for emphasis.
For our purposes, let’s just read over that line again: Jesus himself became the prodigal son for our sake.
Here’s how:
Jesus left the House of his heavenly Father
He went to a foreign, sinful country (although He never sinned)
He gave away all that he had
He returned back to the home of His father
All of this Jesus did, not as a rebellious son, as we saw here with the younger brother, but as the obedient son, sent out to bring home the lost children of God.
If you want to have your minds boggled, reflect on this: as Jesus is telling the parable, He is actually living out the story He is sharing! He is the younger son in all the ways just mentioned while He is teaching about it!
I pray that you are seeing that there is more to this story (and for all of scripture, for that matter) than what meets the eye. Please join me again next week, starting tomorrow, when we take a closer look at the older brother.
In the meantime, let’s close out this week in prayer.
Father God,
Thank you for each and every person reading this today today. Thank you for meeting each and every one of us exactly where we are at. I pray that each of us can get one step closer to you this week. For those who are in a far country right now….I pray that thy choose you. For those who have chosen you, I pray that they ask for forgiveness if they haven’t already, or for those who need to accept- may they accept you with open arms. Thank you for your mercy and for all the distant countries you have already delivered us from. Please keep everyone safe in the palm of your hand until we come together again.
In Jesus’ Holy & Precious Name,
Amen
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Y’all, the Lord has put this series on my heart to write for months already! The content was originally shared July 2022 as a 3-part sermon series at my home church. The focus: the parable of the prodigal son. The effect: perspective shifts, convictions and a new appreciation for a very, very old story.
Now I know what you may be thinking: “What can I possibly learn from this parable that I don’t already know? It’s so basic: sinful son leaves home, returns, and is accepted back by the father.” But is it really that simple?
I PROMISE that it isn’t. By spending the next three weeks together in this story, as Jesus told it, you will learn things you didn’t previously know, and the Spirit will reveal biblical truths that were previously imperceptible. We will spend one week focusing on each of the main characters: the younger brother, the older brother and the father. Sound good?!
Now, before we dive in, I want to share the redeeming tale of another prodigal.
This person was born into a typical Christian home and was exposed to God’s love from the time they were born. They went on family retreats for vacations and sang in the choir. They were a straight A student through 16 years of Catholic school, and proudly walked with their dad as he graduated from law school.
However, for brevity’s sake, let’s fast forward to their teen years. This is when a decade-long string of poor decisions really started. This is also when they walked further and further away from the God of their childhood. At this time, they began drinking, first socially, but then every day. By their late teens, a second life their father had been leading was exposed, and that was right around the time he was disbarred. Simultaneously, their mom was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time.
Despite the world rapidly changing around them, they got a full academic scholarship to college…but the daily drinking continued…a modest inheritance from their grandfather was squandered, in full, before college’s first semester came to an end. Without money, drive, or a relationship with God at this point, they were suffocating by their own internal and external turmoil.
Poor decisions ensued. I think you get the idea. Before ultimately leaving college (and their full scholarship) to get a job for cash in a restaurant, they were diagnosed with major depressive disorder. They often thought that if they just disappeared no one would notice or care. This person would end up with several other diagnoses as a young adult, including Anxiety and PTSD.
By their early 20s, they shut out those who cared for them the most. They didn’t want others to see how far they were falling. At one point, a pastor told this person that nothing of value ever came out of their mouth.
They moved back home after leaving college, but their mother’s heart broke as she watched her child destroy their body and waste their mind. The mother told them to change their lifestyle or move out. The individual left, but not before their depression and the enemy took full hold of them and convinced them that ceasing to exist was the best for everyone.
God had different plans, but it took a few more years for this person to start to embrace what those plans could possibly be.
You see, several more years of selfishness and disregard culminated in unexpectedly expecting.
In that moment, the solid childhood foundation of knowing God’s love flooded back. This person knew that if God intended the child to be born…the child would be…and God, Jehovah Jireh, would provide. In that instant, priorities began to shift and a longing to know God better overtook this person’s heart and mind.
This person suddenly couldn’t get enough of Him! The new little family moved out of state where they didn’t know a single person. Bit by bit, God replaced old parts of their life with Him. He placed godly women in this person’s life and provided examples of how someone could walk with Christ while navigating marriage and parenting. They began to engage with Christian mom groups and the local church. They went on mission trips and saw people hungry for the Word. They wanted that, too.
Slowly but surely, depression was replaced with joy, and indifference transformed into passion. Netflix was replaced with CS Lewis and psychological thrillers were replaced with Tim Keller and Kyle Idleman.
There was an insatiable desire to learn everything they could about God. The more they learned, the more their heart changed. At some point, they started to feel led to share, both the information they had been acquiring and the life changing relationship they had been experiencing with God. After all…what good is knowledge and experience if either remains merely in one’s memory, especially if such an intimate relationship with God could actually change someone’s life?!
This person stopped drinking. They went back to college and finished with a 4.0. After having two more children they went on to get their masters, again with a 4.0, and later began to get their doctorate, but pressed pause on that only because the Lord redirected their path…get this…toward seminary!
They still had their share of messy life to navigate, even after turning toward God, but they did so with a blessed assurance that God was in control and would provide. And God did provide…each and every time. I know.
It was a long and windy road for this person, but it ultimately led to them being able to sit in this coffee house today and type these words to you.
It was me.
I once was lost, but I have also been found, and I am His.
I’m still very much a work in progress as I grow as a person and in my relationship with our God, but I can’t wait to see what he has in store! I let Him change me and hope you’ll let Him, too. His way is better. I promise!
Now that you’ve heard a bit more about how God has worked in my life, and my journey of finding my way back to Him, let’s meet back here, same time same place tomorrow, and we will learn about someone else who was lost and found.
All my love,
Helen
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Did you ever wonder if praying actually makes a difference? What about when it “doesn’t work”? Or what about if God already knows what will happen? Should we still bother? Our reactions to these questions will really depend on what and how we think about prayer.
If we think that prayer is a mechanism by which we negotiate some sort of favorable outcome with our God, we would be sorely mistaken and misguided. Such a transactional mentality is what will keep us from really embracing prayer for what it is: an opportunity to communicate and be in a personal relationship with the one true God.
Kings on this side of eternity are hard to pin down. Someone interested in doing so typically has to seek an audience. By contrast, our heavenly King is always accessible and lovingly welcomes us into His presence. Like being still, not only is praying something we should do, but it is also a biblical imperative:
Just google “pray without ceasing” and see how many other references come up in scripture!
But doesn’t God already know everything about me? Of course…but He wants you to go to Him and tell Him what’s on your mind. Your struggles. Your triumphs. All of it!
But doesn’t God already know what will happen? Yup. He also wants His children to take a posture of humility and come to Him when they need help with something. Sometimes it’s more about the submission than it is about the prayer itself.
But does He hear me even when it doesn’t feel like it or when He is so busy with everyone else’s prayers? You betchya! Our omniscient God hears every prayer we lay before His throne. Sometimes it’s more about cultivating patience in us than it is about answering the prayer itself.
Friends, time spent in the presence of the Lord is NEVER wasted. He gives us exactly what we need. He undoubtedly provides what we would also ask for if we already knew what he knows. He loves us far too much to bend to our every inclination. Do you give your children everything they ask for at the time they ask for it?
Communicating with God is NEVER a waste of time, and we can communicate with Him for so many other reasons than when we need something from Him. When we pray…
If we experience a perspective shift, that is time well spent.
If we discern a bit more of what God would have us do with our lives, that is time well spent.
If we surrender more today than we did yesterday, that is time well spent.
If we ask for or receive forgiveness, that is time well spent.
If we give thanks for anything, no matter how trivial, that is time well spent.
If we cast our fears upon the Lord, that is time well spent.
If we humble ourselves in response to God’s almighty power, that is time well spent.
If we recognize something within us that needs refining, that is time well spent.
If we shout out to the Lord in frustration and anger, that is time well spent.
If we get to know Him, even slightly more intimately, that is time well spent.
If a temptation was kept at bay for just one more day, that is time well spent.
If someone’s life is changed, that is time well spent.
If someone’s eternity is redirected, that is time well spent.
If we simply rest in the presence of our God, that is time well spent, indeed.
Praying always matters and is never a waste of time!
Pray:
Father God, THANK YOU for the gift of prayer and for giving me a way to communicate with you at any time. I’m ashamed to admit that I often take unfettered access to you for granted. Please allow your spirit to work within me so that YOU are the first turn I take when I’m elated or anxious, sorrowed or blessed. I want to start and end my days in communication with you and incorporate prayer into all aspects of my life. Allow prayer to become a part of my day’s rhythm.
Living Simply With God 