"Life is not right until You split the sky. The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!" We long for the day when You make all things new...We want to be with You!" -Merchant Band
Jesus loves me. Really, really, He loves me!! I went to a prayer meeting a week or so ago and Alex watched Anna so I could focus. I feel like for the last 15 months, everytime I am in church I am only about 5% present..and 95% focused on that sweet bundle of love. :) Well on this night I was DESPERATE for God to show up and touch my heart. It is easy to go through the motions and read the bible and pray...but when I don't occasionally FEEL that sweet presence of God, like a giant hug from my Daddy, it can get difficult sometimes to keep pressing in.
Well, on this night He came and squished me with His love. :) He showed up and simply said, "I love you." It was very discrete...I didn't hear the audible voice of the Lord, but I felt Him say, I love you, to my heart. Those 3 words are used a lot in our house. We say, "I love you", probably a thousand times a day. ;) So, sometimes it loses its effect. It's easy to forget what it actually means. I just layed on the floor for a few minutes after the Lord spoke that to my heart... I felt like I was hearing Him speak for the first time. So I wanted to get everything out of it! When I layed down, the story of the prodigal son came into my head. I began to go over the story from what I could remember without stopping to look it up.
I began to play the story out in my head like I was watching a movie. And I began to cry like a baby. I will tell you what I was seeing in my head.
A young man approaches his father and asks him for all of his inheritance. He wants to go and "live his life", he is tired of working and he just wants to have fun. His father, reluctantly agrees. He loves his son so much, but he wants his son to choose to love him back, not just be forced to stay. So he gives him everything. The boy leaves and parties away all that he had. Every dime. Wasted on booze and women and who knows what else. Before too long he is hungry, on the streets and feeling emptier than ever. He thought all of that would make him happy...but now he feels more frustrated than before. He begins to dream of the warmth of his fathers house. There was always food, clothing, but more than that there was always love. His father required him to tend to the fields and be responsible, but he truly loved him. He decided to go back... He got up from the dirty street corner and began the long journey home. He must have practiced what he would say 1,000 times. He would ask his father to let him be a servant in the home because he knew he would be furious with him when he came back with nothing left. He would throw himself at his fathers feet and beg for mercy!
As he draws near to his fathers house he is filled with anxiety, fear and worst of all, shame. He gets a little ways off and sees a figure moving back and forth on the porch. He gets closer...and closer and he stops. His father is pacing on the porch. He looks out and sees him, and he stops, throws his hands in the air and shouts something...and begins to run. His father runs to him (which in that day was totally inappropriate), as he stands there totally perplexed. He gets closer and his arms open wide and he throws his arms around his sons neck and kisses him. His father is weeping and smiling and laughing all at the same time. Before the son can even gather his words, the Father calls everyone out! He says, "My son has come home!! Lets throw a party! Bring the best robe, new shoes and the family ring! He is home!"
And thus is the kingdom of heaven.
I am literally laying on the floor crying in the middle of a prayer meeting, I don't even care that there are 30-40 people who I barely know all around me.
God was showing me, again WHY I fell in love with Him in the first place. Because He loved me when I was unlovely. He chose me when I was making horrible decisions and wasting my life away. He picked me up out of the dirt and cleaned me off and told me I am the one He wants. I have been so caught up in "the christian life", going about my own "already saved" business that I have forgotten my first love. I have forgotten the Man behind the cross. It has become so farmiliar to me that I have forgotten altogether why I am a christian in the first place. Anybody else??
It's His kindness that leads us to repentance. His mercy that draws us in. Yes, there is a place for judgement and God does not pat our sin on the back and say, "Dark but lovely", however... if we turn to Him and are sincere in our brokenness and struggles..He DELIGHTS in setting us free!! He LOVES us!!
And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
Seriously?! There is more joy over the lost one who comes home than for the righteous man who is already saved. My prayer today is that I would LIVE everyday knowing and remembering the joy of my salvation. I was lost, dirty and without a place to call home...and He saved me. He humbled Himself and ran out to meet me while I was a long way off. He didn't treat me like a step-child once I came into the family, He treated me as if I was the ONLY one. This is the beauty of the kingdom. This is the beauty of this man Jesus.
“And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’” Luke 15: 31-32
