In the long seasons of praying for your prodigal, where do you find hope? When your heart aches from a thousand wounds, where do you find comfort? When you wonder if you’ll ever see your loved one come to the Savior, what keeps you clinging to faith?

I find hope, comfort, and confidence in Jesus.

His sovereignty, yes. 

His ability to call the lost to Himself. 

His love for the world, including my loved ones. 

These truths—and many more—strengthen and sustain me.

He Grieves with Us

When my heart hurts the most, I take comfort in knowing that Jesus’ heart ached like mine. That He grieved as I grieve.

When Jesus climbed the long hill to Jerusalem, He stopped to gaze out over the city. The streets teemed with people He had created—souls who would one day spend eternity either with Him or separated from Him. 

He saw religious people who spurned His message because they thought they knew a “better” way to God. He saw educated men who were “too smart” to believe that He was the only way. He saw self-righteous people trusting in their good works to get to heaven. And He saw ordinary people busy about their lives with no thought of God at all.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Jesus cried, “who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34).

His words echo with sadness and longing. 

His words could have been our words. 

“O daughter,” we cry, “O son, O precious friend, neighbor, or relative, you who have rejected the love of Jesus, how I long to gather you close and introduce you to my Savior, but you are not willing.”

He Prays with Us

Jesus grieved over His wayward children. 

He wept over them. 
He pleaded with them.
He died for them.

This same Jesus weeps with us as we weep for our loved ones.He cares about those we care about. He is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3 ESV). He not only sympathizes, He empathizes. As He did in Jerusalem, He feels the ache of broken fellowship, the emptiness of arms that long to hold our loved ones close, and the pain of their rejection.

As fellow mourners, we can take comfort in this. 

We can rest in His embrace and take courage from His example of unwavering love.

We can know that He prays with us as we lift our prodigals’ names before God in heaven. “He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them” (Heb. 7:25). 

Reverend Robert Murray M’Cheyne once said, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million of enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference; He is praying for me.”1

This knowledge gives me strength to persevere when the twin enemies of doubt and fear overwhelm my heart. It tells me that God has the power to open my loved ones’ eyes and draw them to Himself. It assures me that He hears my prayers and works according to His perfect will. 

It reminds me that I can trust Him.

He Bears Our Burdens

I find comfort, too, in knowing that I don’t bear my sorrow alone. When the weight of broken dreams and fractured relationships grows too heavy to carry, Jesus, my heavenly burden bearer, bends low to take my grief upon His mighty shoulders. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” He says, “and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).

Finally, I take comfort in knowing that Jesus is all-powerful. He can open blind eyes, heal the sick, and call our lost loved ones to Himself. No heart is too hard for Him to penetrate. No soul is too far for Him to reach. As the all-powerful Creator, He can and will order the events of our prodigals’ lives to reveal Himself to them. 

He Still Calls the Lost 

Weeks after Jesus wept over Jerusalem, Peter preached the gospel to the same crowd that had shouted, “Crucify him!” 

When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” . . . So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them. (Acts 2:37–38, 41) 

Jesus loved the people of Jerusalem. He revealed Himself to every one of them. He gave them all a chance to believe. 

He will do the same for those we love. We can take great comfort in Jesus.

1Andrew A. Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne: Minister of St. Peter’s Church, Dundee (London: W. Middleton, 1846), 158.

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