The prodigal son

How many times have we heard the phrase we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father?

When I first started driving, there was a guy in Springville who I picked up. As I talked to him I found out that he was waiting long periods of time for people to pick him up and it wasn’t consistent. He asked me if I could arrange to always pick him up, so I do! I thought there was something so interesting about this guy. He is young but he never seemed to have plans. He just went home and into work. He had long hair and a scruffy beard. He’s 22 years old.

He worked for his dad’s company along with two of his older brothers. He had told me that he had fallen out of favor with his dad. I told him to hang in there.

I recognized that by his appearance and the air about him that he wasn’t an active member of the church. I asked him if he was a member and he said no,yes, kind of. He said that he really didn’t have a clue about the truthfulness of the church but that he was pretty sure that it wasn’t true.

I could tell he had been into some really bad things by the feel around him. He also had an upside down cross tattoo in the webbing between his forefinger and his thumb. My experience has been that this is not usually a good sign.

I asked him if he’d ever thought about getting back into the church and he said that he was pretty sure the church didn’t want people back that had done the things he had done. I asked him if he’d ever killed anybody and he said no. Then I said “no problem we want you back”

He looked shocked yet touched. It is like no one had ever invited hm back. I talked to him about how repentance is real and everyone can come back and be clean. I gave him the link to the 1981 Neil Maxwell conference talk entitled “O Divine Redeemer.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1981/10/o-divine-redeemer?lang=eng

I told him he needed to get to know his Savior just a little better. It took him a few days but he did listen to it and he loved it. He said he had never thought about Jesus that way. He did however say that he had to write words down and look them up to understand Elder Maxwell. I told him that that would be the same for every person that ever listened to Elder Maxwell speak.

One Sunday night he called me and asked me if I could take his mother to the airport at 5 AM the next morning. To that point I didn’t even know he had a mother although I assumed so. We hadn’t talked about his non work family.

The next morning in the car his mother said she was excited to meet me because they had been hoping for someone to come along that he would respect and listen to. She said she was very happy that I was that guy. She said that he was very troubled and lost. She said that his father didn’t treat him well and that they were no longer married.

I told her I thought her son was a good kid that had made some bad decisions. I told her that I thought that God could touch his heart and his soul and that he would come back. It was like that hadn’t occurred to her. She seemed to have lost all hope.

Armed with this information, I decided to be more aggressive and prayerful with regards to my interactions on those rides. I begin to prayerfully choose topics to discuss each time I picked him up.

Often we talked about Elder Maxwell’s talk and he continued to listen to it every week. I asked him if he had a Book of Mormon and he said that he didn’t. I gave him one that I had that was marked with several passages regarding what people seek in life. It’s one of the Sister Martino Book of Mormon’s.

The next day he said he’d felt peace from the book. He said he downloaded the app so he could listen as well. I told him that I thought it was time that he start thinking about going to church. He entertained the idea in my presence but I could tell he wasn’t serious about it. He just kept saying that they wouldn’t want him there after all the things he had done.

I kept going out for a few more weeks and then one day I felt prompted to talk to him about his relationship with his father in heaven. I asked him what his father in heaven thought about him. He told me that he thought his father in heaven didn’t like him because he had denied him and turned his back on him.

He told me that he didn’t have a great relationship with his father and he couldn’t imagine a father that would be loving towards him after the things he had done. He said he couldn’t imagine a father being loving at all because he’s never seen that. When I told him that he had a loving heavenly father he just had a hard time grasping that and what it meant because he’d never seen it.

I talked to him about the prodigal son. He had never heard that parable but was touch deeply by the thought of a father that would forgive his son and give him everything that he had. He said that he didn’t think that kind of love really existed. I assured him that I did. That it was a heavenly thing and an attribute that we as fathers strive for.

I talked to him about how he and his father in heaven had a real relationship. In the pre-existence they knew each other and that it was a powerful relationship. The most foundational feeling and relationship in his existence. One with emotions and real feelings. I told him that the love he felt from that relationship carried through into this life and that when he felt it he would know that God is near. Just as I was saying that I could tell he was feeling that! The spirit was so strong in the car that this young man who had made some horrible choices in his life with regards to his priorities and his worship was overcome by the spirit. He had tears in his eyes and a burning feeling in his heart.

He said this feeling is amazing. I told him that that’s what he felt in the presence of God and when he felt that he knew that what he was hearing was true. I asked him if he felt at that moment that he was irredeemable like he had told me before. He said no, right now I feel like God loves me. I told him that was the power of a loving father in heaven and that he was always there for him when he decided to come back.

I told him that now because he had received this experience and witness he was obligated to act on the knowledge he received. He said he would. I saw a smile on his face that day for the first time since I met him. Day by day his countenance began to change.

Then he moved. I thought this was going to be a bad thing because he previously lived right across the road from the church. We had reached out to the bishop and had it all set for him to start going to church there.

It turns out that the people in the place where he rented were not good people. He moved across town to a better neighborhood with better people. One day on the way to his house I said we need to quit having your goal be attending church. You need a bigger goal than that. You need to prepare to go to the temple or on a mission.

He was shocked that I would say such a thing and asked me if I thought he could do that. I said yes but we need to get started. He said he thought he was too old to go on a mission, I assured him that he could go until he was 26 But that he needed to become very obedient.

This young man has been controlled by Satan. Satan has been whispering in his ear nonstop for years that there is no way God could love him or want him. In a few short weeks we had turned that around and he was now looking forward to great things.

When we got to his house that day he looked up his address and found his new YSA bishop. I called the bishop and talked to him. I told him about this young man and gave him his phone number. When he called they made a connection and had a half hour loving discussion. He had been one of his young men leaders when he was a deacon.

Their families had ridden motorcycles and gone camping together. This bishop had a boy who was friends with him and he knew everything about him… good and bad. It was such a comfortable wonderful fit. He told me that with this bishop he would have absolutely no hesitation to open up foe help. He said that he couldn’t believe how lucky he was. I told him it wasn’t luck. I told him when he was looking for the apartment the Lord brought him there. The spirit was strong in the car and he said it’s time for me to go back to church

I perceived that he had some hesitation with regards to going to church as well as praying. My impression said that he felt like everyone else there was great and that he wouldn’t fit in. He also felt like when he prayed he didn’t get the kind of answers he thought he should get. I told him to get those two thoughts out of his head!

I told him that first off, everyone of the people in that sacrament meeting is focused on their sins and thinking how they don’t fit in because that’s what Satan is telling them. Satan is bombarding him with that and he’s bombarding everybody with that. Satan tells them non-stop that they shouldn’t pray, that they don’t feel the spirit or that God doesn’t answer their prayers. He hits them non stop with these messages.

The thing is these things are lies. They come from Satan and he is the father of lies. Everything he says is a lie and he bombards them and especially him with those lies and satan should be disregarded immediately. I told him that he should do just the opposite. Prove that he’s strong and reject these thoughts. I told him he needs to be strong, be a man and stand up. Go to church and say his prayers.

Now he is doing just that! In a matter of three months I have seen the spirit of the Lord and the love of God take a lost young man and begin a transformation that started in his heart and changed his whole entire being. He still has a long way to go. He still has to get permission from his parole officer to go to sacrament meeting until January. He, the bishop, and I are all good with that and so is our father in heaven…. who loves him, who is rescuing him and who will walk with him. He never gives up on us. This young man knows this now.

By the way he loves this blog and loves to hear these stories. He was excited for me to write his story, so here it is! And I have found a tattoo removal place to help him out as well.