"He needs to hit rock bottom before God can work."
How it sounds in your head: Maybe I should stop helping. Maybe he needs to experience real consequences. People say God can't move until they're broken enough to be desperate. I'm afraid of what 'rock bottom' might look like.
"Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?"
-- Romans 2:4Religious cliché that God requires maximum suffering before He intervenes, making the Father distant and waiting.
You've heard testimony after testimony of people who 'had to lose everything' before they turned to God. It seems like the pattern, and you wonder if your help is actually delaying God's work.
The son 'came to himself' while still in the pig pen and started home—but the Father saw him 'while he was still a LONG WAY OFF' and RAN to him. The Father didn't wait for him to clean up or arrive; He ran toward him MID-JOURNEY.
I REFUSE the lie that God waits for maximum brokenness. IT IS WRITTEN that God's GOODNESS leads to repentance, not suffering. The Father runs toward returning sons while they're STILL FAR OFF—still dirty, still smelling like pigs. My son doesn't need to hit bottom; he needs to encounter KINDNESS. IT IS WRITTEN in Lamentations 3:22-23 that God's mercies are NEW EVERY MORNING. That means TODAY is a new opportunity for breakthrough. The BARAK covers him NOW, not after consequences.
The Father isn't waiting for your son to suffer enough—He's waiting to run toward him the MOMENT he turns his face home, even if he's still covered in mud.