We are the total sum of all the moments we have ever lived. Whether good or bad we reflect them all completely in our current moments. All the healed spots, wounded hearts and patched bruises. Sometimes the sum of our lives equates to something we never imagined. Moments in the sun followed by periods of extensive darkness.
My heat has been heavy lately for friends that I once knew and those I didn't quite know, but still loved dearly. I have been hit by the weight of the cost of following Christ. My eyes have been opened to the harsh reality of those I once knew who are actually still pursuing Him fervently. I am watching as men and women that I went to bible school with, and looked up to greatly, are no longer loving and following Jesus. I suppose that theologians and scholars would say that they were never truly converted if this were the case, but I see something else entirely. I see prodigals. I see broken hearts. I see wounds that have never healed... and I see sons and daughters missing the greatest relationship they will ever have. A relationship with their Father.
I am searching for words, through Holy Spirit, on how to pray and speak to these hurting friends. I can only wish that I would be in those moments of conversation like Jesus with skin on. My heart yearns within me for the returning of the children to their Father. Oh God, let them return. I know that sometimes we aren't quite as burning and shining as we would like to be as lamps to this world, but I believe that as a church our words can bring healing, or push these sons and daughters further away. I pray that our hearts would begin to cry, COME HOME!!
Imagine with me for a moment... brokenhearted and deeply wounded a son turns his back on his father. With a darkened heart he asks his father for everything he owes him. The broken son leaves with a chip on his shoulder to squander the wealth of his father who worked his life expecting his son to spend his inheritance well. The son spends everything he has within him during a season of rebellion and disgrace. One morning the son wakes up and realizes the hole that he has cultivated within his own heart, and he realized that the time spent wasting his inheritance brought him nowhere near happiness. The son wakes up within a new brokenness that he's never had before. Reluctantly he starts his journey back to his father. As he walks over the hill to his father's house he sees something that he could have never imagined. His father was standing waiting for his son with open arms... and as tears stream down his face he welcomes his son home! No words of condemnation are spoken, but rather love and welcoming comes from his lips. For his son's homecoming he throws a party, a bash to say to the world, "MY SON HAS RETURNED TO ME!!"
Come home, come home! He's waiting.
