Always Leave a Light On

No matter how impossible it seems, you don’t have to give up hope that your prodigal will come home.

by Rob Parsons

Sometimes life ambushes us. Ten years ago I was asked to speak at a local event in England called Bringing Home the Prodigals. I knew it would be a day of prayer, but apart from that, I had little idea of what awaited me.

Thousands of people came, and each of them had a prodigal on his or her heart—children, a husband or wife, a sibling, friend, or even a parent.

A huge cross had been erected at the front of the auditorium. After a time of worship, all were invited to write the name of their loved one on small cards and lay them at the foot of the cross. I made my way forward to pray for those standing there and saw before me hundred of cards. Some were written neatly, others scrawled, and some with several names. It seemed to me that the pain of the world was at the foot of that cross. My eyes filled up as I read them, one after the other. I wondered what story lay behind the line, “Bring my son William home, Lord” or the note that simply said, “My husband.”

At the time, my wife Dianne and I had heavy hearts for our two children—I wrote Katie and Lloyd’s names, placed them side-by-side beneath the cross, and began to weep. I couldn’t stop.

When I stood to speak later that day, I was a different man from the one who had walked into the auditorium earlier. The message I actually delivered wasn’t the one folded up in my pocket—the tidy one with all the answers. Rather, it was forged from my own brokenness and a sense of utter dependence on God.

That night, my heart was captured with a message of hope, reconciliation, and healing, and it has become my passion. Over the years I’ve witnessed the heartache of those who long to see their prodigal come home—and I will never tire of offering them hope. If you’re in this place right now, I want to encourage you to do a few important things.

Let go of false guilt.
Parents of prodigal children often stagger under a load of all-consuming guilt. I received a letter from one such mother:

We were brought up in Christian families and tried to bring our children up in the same way. That worked for two of them, but Peter seemed to rebel against it. One day he got in trouble with the police. We were so ashamed that we decided to move because we were concerned about what people in church would say. In 1992, he left home and we haven’t seen him since. I hope and pray he will get in contact again, and if he does, we will not ask where he has been or what he has done; we will just welcome him with open arms.

When we hear people in church boast repeatedly about how all their children are “walking with the Lord,” we wonder where we went wrong. Whether our children are age six or sixty, we feel responsible for them. But often we carry guilt needlessly. It’s important to realize that our children make their own choices in life. Adam and Eve had the only perfect Father and began their lives in the only perfect environment, but they chose a path He didn’t want them to take. Much of the Bible reveals God grieving over His children and saying, “Why are you turning your back on everything I’ve taught you?”

None of us can make our children “godly.” There are parents who’ve got it more right than most but whose child nevertheless has turned his or her back on everything they hold dear. I’m not insinuating that any of us are perfect parents, but regardless, we are called to live godly lives and lead by example.

It’s true that Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (NIV). But that’s not a guarantee—it’s a principle. If you follow it, you will give your children a wonderful foundation in life, but they will still make choices.

Too often, we want our children to do well because we want to be well-thought-of ourselves. One church leader told me, “My boy is going through a hard time right now, and at first my main concern was, What will my congregation think? But I have only enough emotional energy to deal with the real issues, so I’ve decided that I have to set myself free of what others think. The greatest need is my son’s well-being, not my reputation.”

Keep the church doors open.
I passionately desire to see hurting family members released from false guilt, but I also want to challenge the church about the part we’ve played in “creating” prodigals. There is many a young person who has been branded a prodigal because of his hair color, the cigarettes in his pocket, or the music venues he visits. Never mind the fact that he might care for the poor, have a wonderfully forgiving nature and, in his heart, love God. We may be satisfied with an outward conformity, but God isn’t.

I wonder whether the real problem the church faces with regard to its prodigals is that half of them are still in the pews, not realizing how far from the Father’s house they have wandered. Perhaps one day we will discover that our bitterness, judgment toward others, and putting down church leaders in front of our children were what God actually considered offensive.

And if we’ve made it easy for “prodigals” to leave, we have also made it hard for them to return. I once heard an elderly man say, “When the Father’s house is filled with the Father’s love, the prodigals will come home.” How true this is. They need honesty and acceptance on their journeys toward God, not demands to keep up a certain image. They need a home, not a battlefield. The opposite image is a beautiful one: prodigals streaming from the four corners of the earth towards the Father’s house, where there is grace, forgiveness, and genuine love.

And when our prodigals do come home, we must pray that they meet the father from Jesus’ parable before they meet the elder brother (Luke 15:11-31). The older sibling will be waiting with his list of rules and his record of wrongs. But the father will be patient, understanding that when a prodigal comes home, he will still smell of the pigsty. In the story, the father doesn’t tell his servants, “Quick! Run a bath for my son!” and then say to the boy, “As soon as you’ve cleaned up, you can come into the house.” The return of a prodigal is not the end of a journey but a beginning—and it will take patience and love to see recent wanderer through the healing process.

Don’t give up.
Those of us who pray for prodigals have broken hearts; we have learned that no person, book, or event is going to singlehandedly bring about the answer to our prayers. We are thrown completely on God’s grace and know that we must surrender everything to Him. As we come before the Lord with humble hearts, we acknowledge that we have no answers—only our memories and a little faith.

But as I’ve witnessed first-hand, there is no better place to lay down your prodigal than at the foot of the cross, where Christ laid down His life for us. The cross is the greatest of mysteries: it is a place of apparent defeat and yet unassailable victory; it is a place of tears which ultimately waters the seeds of unbridled joy, bringing them to bloom.

Our prayers may not be answered in the way that we want. But I do know that when we believe God is our only hope, we are in the best place possible for Him to move.

I’ve heard countless stories of prodigals coming home. One mother told me:

With no warning, Carla, our only child, left home on her 18th birthday. My husband and I were devastated; we had brought her up in a caring Christian home. We didn’t hear from her again for four years, and during that time never knew whether she was alive or dead. But before going to bed each night, I would turn the porch light on. I would look at its glow, and often tears would stream down my face. I missed my daughter so much. Every Christmas, I put a little tree with lights in front of the house for her.

Carla finally returned home, and she told me of the importance of that porch light. Unbeknown to me she had driven past our home many times late at night, and sometimes just sat there in her car. She said, “Every house was dark, apart from ours: you always left a light on. And at Christmas I would do the same: just sit in the darkness and look at the Christmas tree you had put outside—I knew it was for me.”

My daughter is now happily married, and we have two beautiful grandsons. My heart goes out to anybody waiting for a prodigal to come home. Please tell them never to give up hope.

I believe that something is stirring. When I see the wind in the tops of the trees, I wonder if God, in His mercy, is turning the hearts of hundreds of thousands toward home. You may have prayed long and hard for your prodigal, who may seem farther away than ever. But don’t give up. Keep on praying.

And always leave a light on.

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