Someone asked my husband about the double mindedness of a prodigal. Here’s his response:
James 1:8 says that a double minded man is unstable in all his ways, and unstable is exactly where your spouse is. I wanted desperately to come home in one sense, because it was the only peace I could truly find. Yet at the same time, I thought I had “done too much” or “wandered too far,” and I couldn’t forgive myself. I didn’t feel like I deserved to come home or to be received by my wife. I thought I had to continue on the path that I started because in my mind nothing would ever be the same again. I also never thought that the change that I was seeing in my wife was permanent. It wasn’t logical nor was it the woman that I had been married to the previous 10 years. Consistently being received with love, consistently seeing Christ in my wife, consistently finding an attitude of unconditional forgiveness and compassion is what won the battle. And those things came by the Holy Spirit working in my wife’s life. Just as Jesus is faithful to forgive us, and He is full of mercy, grace and love, so a stander must be immersed in Him, put away their own flesh, and show those same things to the prodigal spouse. How many times have we returned with our head hung to our Lord, full of shame, yet found Him with open arms ready to separate our sin from us as far as the East is from the West if we only repent? Keep standing and following His example.