Bible Verses for a Prodigal Child: Luke 15 From the Father's Side, for the Parent Still Waiting

Psalm 13, for the ninth year of the same prayer

The passage Bible Nudge offers for waiting is Psalm 13:1-2:

How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

Psalm 13 is a short prayer of complaint. It asks "how long" four times, and turns toward trust later, in verse 5: "But I trust in your loving kindness. My heart rejoices in your salvation."

If you have prayed for the same son or daughter for nine years, the question you keep asking is already in Scripture, word for word, as a prayer, and you can say it untidied. Waiting when nothing is happening reads the psalm line by line.

One way to use it, after a message that was not answered: pray the four questions as the psalm has them, one at a time. Then answer the site's question for this passage: "What have you been waiting for longer than you expected?" Your child's name is a full answer.

Luke 15, read whole from the father's side

Read all of it. It opens with a complaint: "Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming close to him to hear him. The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, 'This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.'" Jesus answers with three stories of lost things, a sheep, a coin and a son.

When the younger son asks for his share, "He divided his livelihood between them" (verse 12). Later, "while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran" (verse 20). Then the elder son "was angry, and would not go in. Therefore his father came out, and begged him" (verse 28): "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." The story ends with the father still speaking; the elder son's answer is never told. Shame reads the younger son's return, and feeling left out the elder son outside.

How the father has been read

The Catholic Catechism (1439) calls "the merciful father" the center of the parable. Metropolitan Tikhon, of the Orthodox Church in America, says "the father lets the son go" and calls him "an icon of God the Father." The emphases differ, and each can stand.

One reader on Reddit's r/Christianity noticed the order of things: "The father of the prodigal son welcomed his son back before he repented". In the story, letting go, watching the road and going out to both children are all the same love.

The word, and your child's side of it

Merriam-Webster defines prodigal as "characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure." The parable's title came later; many call it the lost son, or the two sons.

Some grown children hear it differently. One wrote on Reddit's r/Exvangelical, “Knowing they consider you a "prodigal child" is so insulting.” It is worth knowing their side. If your child stepped back after something at home, estranged family is written from both sides of that silence.

Grief for a child who is still living

Pauline Boss named it ambiguous loss in her 1999 book, and in her On Being interview (2019) she says "the only way to live with ambiguous loss is to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time." Parents of adult children with drug addiction, interviewed in Norway in 2022, "often carry feelings of guilt and shame" alongside the daily work of caring.

Parents in Scripture whose children went another way

Job rose early and offered sacrifices for each child, saying, "It may be that my sons have sinned" (Job 1:5), a model for the parent who prays every morning without knowing. Samuel led Israel all his life, yet "His sons didn’t walk in his ways" (1 Samuel 8:3). Eli's sons "didn’t know Yahweh," and when he spoke to them, "they didn’t listen to the voice of their father" (1 Samuel 2:12, 25). Rashi and Matthew Henry read 3:13 as Eli not restraining them; the text records the sons' own choices beside it. Manasseh, son of faithful Hezekiah, did great evil; in captivity "he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly," and was restored (2 Chronicles 33:12-13).

If you are asking what you did wrong, Ezekiel answers the exiles' proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge." God replies, "as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine," and in verse 20: "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him." In Ezekiel each generation stands before God as itself, you and your grown child each in your own name.

Parents who asked Jesus for their children

A father brought his son and "cried out with tears, 'I believe. Help my unbelief!'" (Mark 9:24), read closely on doubting God. A Canaanite woman kept asking mercy for her daughter and heard "Woman, great is your faith!" (Matthew 15:28). A royal official asked for his son and was told, "Go your way. Your son lives" (John 4:50). Each simply asked.

God's voice as a parent

"When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt," and "How can I give you up, Ephraim? ... My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused" (Hosea 11:1, 8). "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him" (Jeremiah 31:20). "Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you!" (Isaiah 49:15). They are spoken of Israel as a people, as Radak reads them, and you can pray them as God's own grief and remembering for a wayward child.

Verses handed to waiting parents, in their settings

Enduring Word calls Proverbs 22:6 a principle of wisdom, and Thomas Ross, in a 2017 study, argues it is a promise when rightly read. Empty nest reads the proverb itself.

Prayers waiting parents have kept

Augustine tells in Confessions III.12 of his mother Monica's tears for him, and of a bishop who told her, "Go your way; live as you will; it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish." The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese keeps a Sunday of the Prodigal Son, its theme repentance and the return to the Heavenly Father. One idea of our own: write your child's name beside Psalm 13 in your Bible, or on a card by the bed.

Help for the parent, alongside prayer

If your child is drinking, using drugs or in prison, these services are for families. Al-Anon is for relatives and friends of people with alcoholism. Nar-Anon groups exist "to help families of addicts." Adfam serves families affected by drugs and alcohol in the UK, and the Prisoners' Families and Friends Service serves England and Wales. CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training), developed by Robert Meyers and William Miller, is an approach written for families.

If the waiting wears on your health, the NHS in the UK says, "If low mood is affecting your daily life or causing you distress, call NHS 111 or talk to a GP," a family doctor, and "Trusted friends, family and colleagues, or contacting a helpline, can help us when we are struggling." Elsewhere, see your own doctor.

Questions people ask

Should I call my child a prodigal? Some parents pray with the word; some grown children find it hurtful. It helps to know how yours hears it.

Is my child's choice my fault? Ezekiel 18:20 says "neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son." Samuel and Hezekiah were faithful, and their sons still chose their own way.

What can I pray when I have no words left? The four questions of Psalm 13:1-2, or the father's words in Mark 9:24, "I believe. Help my unbelief!"

Where to go next

If you fear for your child's life, or your own, reach a person tonight. In the United States, call or text 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In Canada, call or text 9-8-8. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans is on 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. Anywhere else, Find A Helpline lists services by country.

After the next message that goes unanswered, pray Psalm 13:1-2 with the verses around it, and put your child's name where it fits. If something else is on your heart, Bible Nudge can suggest one passage for it. Find a passage.