Lift up your eyes and see! For your sons and daughters are coming home to you from distant lands. - Isaiah 60:4

One of the lessons Jesus taught in the parable of the Prodigal Son is this: don't give up on someone no matter how bad things may be in their lives. You may have to step back for a time and let them hit rock bottom, and learn from their mistakes, but don't write them off completely. If you have family members who are missing or estranged, from your life, don't give up on them either, keep praying for them.

We give up too soon because sometimes we don't see beyond their conduct. We don't know the experiences they have gone through that may have made them what they are. Even if you grew up with them you will not know ALL the things that they have been through or their perspective on any shared experiences, theirs may be far different from yours. Often people 'act out' due to emotional pain, unhealed wounds and unresolved issues they are carrying around inside. Sometimes that anger is masking deep fear. Others act like the dysfunctional parents that raised them, because those are the tools they were given to work with and until someone shows them a better way, they are stuck, often not realizing or not accepting, they have a problem.

We don't know what people are struggling with, and don't let a mask of success fool you. Some one can drive a nice care, be comfortably off with a nice house and a good job, yet their marriage is falling apart, their children are in rebellion and their mind is going crazy with stress.

People need our compassion, they don't need us writing them off as a lost cause, ask God for words of Wisdom.

The Lord God has given me his words of wisdom so that I may know what I should say to all these weary ones. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will. - Isaiah 50:4

Keep praying for the lost in your family and for those friends or even ex-partners that you think are lost. Keep praying and trying to help them and God may make you a paramedic of His mercy and grace. So the word today is - Don't Give Up on Them because God hasn't!