The very best thing you could do for the prodigal in your life is to grow in your own faith. He or she needs you to be a prayer warrior, and warriors need good nourishment. If you pursue God with all your heart, soul, and strength while you wait on your prodigal’s return, one of Satan’s favorite strategies will be thwarted.

The Prodigal Spouse

Besides the prodigal son, there’s another parable of a prodigal in the Bible. It isn’t told by Jesus; instead it was lived in real life by the prophet Hosea. God told Hosea to marry a prostitute. He took her away from the men who had bought her, gave her a home, and had children by her. She didn’t stay with him, but instead ran away to her old life, the life he had rescued her from.

God wouldn’t let Hosea let his wife go. He directed him to go and buy her back. Only think of how painful it must have been for a husband whose wife has run away from his loving provision to have to purchase her from another man. But Hosea did it because God has done that for us.

Though she had not loved him, he loved her. Through Hosea’s story, God sent a powerful message to his people. Though they had served other gods and run away from his love, he wasn’t through with them. He loved them and would redeem them so they could come back into the safety of his love. He said, “I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them” (Hos. 14:4).

Tragically, husbands and wives still live out this painful parable today. Lynn and her husband had been married for twelve years when she started to realize that there was something really wrong with her marriage. She didn’t suspect an affair at first because she couldn’t believe that her husband, a professing Christian, would violate his marriage vows. He was a doctor and often worked late, but one Christmas Eve, he didn’t come home at all.

That Christmas was the start of years of unfaithfulness, separations, and attempts at reconciliation. Lynn’s husband would lie about his affairs, making it nearly impossible to tell when, if ever, his repentance was genuine. Lynn vividly remembers sitting with him at a coffee shop where he asked her to forgive him for his infidelity, yet all the while she knew that his plan after leaving the coffee shop was to go and sleep with another woman.

Lynn prayed for her husband to repent. They went through hundreds of hours of counseling sessions together. She could have divorced him early on, but her heart’s desire was for their relationship to be restored and their family made whole. She didn’t just want him to stop having affairs and start living an upright life. She longed to know his heart, but he didn’t want to be known. Instead, he betrayed her again and again.

If you have been forsaken by your spouse or your spouse has forsaken God, like Lynn, you know something of the pain Hosea experienced. And you know something of the pain God experiences each time one of his children forsakes his steadfast love for some fleeting pleasure the world can offer. He isn’t just looking for good behavior; he’s looking for intimacy with us.

Satan, the Multitasker

When Satan goes after our family, he also goes after us. He loves to kill two birds with one stone. When your spouse is caught up in sin or unbelief, it is highly tempting to make that person the center of your faith. Your spiritual walk can become not about your salvation through faith in Christ, but a desperate campaign to save the prodigal you love. As time goes on, if you don’t see an answer to your prayers for your prodigal, you may be tempted to doubt.

Conversely, you may be tempted to harden your heart as did the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal. Even as you pray for your prodigal to repent, you may find yourself comparing your own life path with his and feeling pretty pleased with yourself. You may find yourself thinking, “I would never do what he has done,” even though you might not say it out loud. Beware self-righteousness. It is just as destructive to the soul as promiscuity, and far more deceptive.

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