To reclaim the prodigal is well, but to save him from ever being a prodigal is better.
Interpretation
Preventing someone from making poor choices is more valuable than helping them recover from those choices.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of guiding others away from destructive behaviors before they engage in them, rather than merely helping them after they have gone astray. It highlights a proactive approach to care and mentorship, suggesting that the ultimate goal is not just to assist in recovery but to prevent the need for recovery in the first place.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a mentorship workshop to emphasize the importance of guiding youth.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place.
A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."
There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.
When I hear other people's stories, I like to believe that they contribute to my 'Encyclopedia of Human Experience.' The stories I hear help me expand my definition of what love is, what pain feels like, what sacrifice means, what laughter can do.
Write your injuries in dust, your benefits in marble.
The first duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents that he understands their arguments, and sympathies with their just feelings.
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