After All (You Can Come Home to God)

Hello: Here is this week’s Living Water. It is actually the final chapter from my book Giving Faith a Second Chance. I just felt like someone out there might need to hear this today. Blessings, Christopher

“He who counts the stars and calls them by their names, is in no danger of forgetting His own children.”

C.H. Spurgeon

It was a familiar ending.  It seemed inevitable.  This son, this brother had gone off, thinking he knew better (Luke 15:11-32).  He thought he was too big for his family, for his hometown.  So he took his share of the family fortune.  He would show them.

Well, things didn’t go exactly as planned.  They never do.  The world kind of got in the way of the plans.  The distractions, the pleasure-chasing, all the wasted time on fruitless adventures – they ate up that portion of the family fortune rather quickly.

“No problem,” this son and brother thought.  He would just get a job and build everything from there.  But the job was worse than dead-end.  And there he was – everything was lost and he was a prisoner of his choices and the consequences of those choices.  He had reached the end of his rope.  And like we have said, there is a certain clarity at the rope end.  And so there was for this son and brother.  The crazy idea came to him, that maybe he could go back to his father and ask for forgiveness.  It’s amazing how the rope end influences us to conceive of the impossible things we swore we never would do.  We start thinking about things that only happen in dreams, good dreams.  We start facing the truth at the rope end.  At the same time, it’s incredible how the end of the rope jars our memories of good things like old pictures of what was good; of what can still be good or good again.

Here was this son and brother, hitting the bottom; how far he had fallen.  It all could have ended right there.  Maybe he wouldn’t die right away, he would sooner or later, but it was his soul that was nearly dead and he was already dead and lost to his family.  It could have been a familiar ending; one we have read and heard about so many times…

But he was on his way back.  “It couldn’t get any worse,” he must have thought.  Facing a living or an actual hell or facing his father; his father might forgive him; hell wouldn’t.  He practiced his speech again.  The distance and the walking weren’t as far as the distance he felt from his dad.  It could have been a million miles, but the gulf he felt between he and his family was much more.  The shame, the sense of failure, the sins and the damage were all wider and farther than any road.

So many questions.  Will he recognize or remember me?  Will they let me back into the family?

He kept walking despite the prison he was carrying, despite the fear, despite the doubt.

And then it was in sight.  The house.  The house and the family he had shamed and failed.  He practiced the speech again.  “Father, I have sinned against you…I am not worthy to be your son…”  The road was the same and as he looked up he could see someone moving toward him; now running.  It was him, the father.

“Can I do this,” the son asked himself.  “Maybe I should turn and run; this feels awful, I think I am going to puke,” he thought.  “He is probably running towards me to tell me to get out of here; that I am not allowed to come near this house ever again.”

The son remembered a chasing game they used to play when he and his brother were children.  The father would chase them from far away.  And as he would run after the sons, he looked bigger and bigger to them as he approached.  He always looked bigger, clearer just as he scooped them up in his strong arms.

Now the father was running toward the son again.  The once impossible distance was now rapidly disappearing.  The father was coming from his house – the son coming from the rope end.  And just like before, the father became bigger as he came closer.

The son looked down as to hide.  And when he looked up again the father was there right in front of him his arms first raising and then opening…opening for an embrace.

“He wants to hug me?” the son thought in confusion.  And then it happened.  The son was in the arms of the father again.  The father embraced and kissed the son.

And all the son could think was, “I don’t deserve this, I am not worthy of this man’s embraces and kisses.”  He thought of his speech.  “I have to say my speech about how I am not worthy.”

He tried to stammer out the words, but then he realized that his father wasn’t listening; his father was already starting to organize the party.  What about the punishment?  What about the condemnation?  What about the speech about awful he was?

See, the return spoke all the more than any speech and confession…he could come home after all; because he came home first in his heart.  Before he even took a step with his foot, he was already home.  The miles, the distance, and the sins all can be miraculously bridged with that one lean and lurch and tilt of the heart.

So that after all, for the son and for us, there is an open seat, we can be recognized; we can be found, heard and held.  After all, our souls can breathe again, the eclipse can pass, and there can be real fulfillment.  After all, the prison door can open and the questions can be answered.  After all, for the son and for us, it can be like this and more by returning through the broken pieces of our hearts.

After all, for the son and for us the celebration can begin…

1. Have you been or have you ever tried to make it on your own and failed? Can you share about that and how it felt, if you were able to, to go back?
2. Is there any chance God could be like the father in this story? Why or why not?
3. Could you also come home to God in your heart before you even take a step? Are you ready to do this through asking for a second chance?

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The Ask

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you…how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:7,11

 

 

Eight years ago today, it was sunny, warm and breezy. My father, brother, Jenny and I were standing in front of my mother’s casket at the cemetery towards the end of the graveside service. The breeze had a playfulness to it. The other family and friends had been invited to place flowers at the foot of the casket and nearly all of them had been blown off by the playful breeze to the other side – away from all of us on this side. It was now time, for the four of us to place our flowers at the head of the casket, concluding the service. And so each of us placed the flowers there – before that playful, joyful breeze pushed the flowers this time back at us, falling at our feet. And without missing a beat, Jenny smiled and said, “Aw, she’s giving them back to you.”

 

It was a moment I will never forget for a couple of reasons. As you might imagine, in the middle of grief you have a numbed, nauseous feeling and it was the last moment I would be only a reach away from my mother’s body. And yet, in the middle of it all, the playful breeze, the love of the flowers being returned to us and Jenny’s sweet voice explaining it all, as if God speaking through her – confirming many thoughts and prayers in just a sentence.

 

Answered prayer. In the haze of grief, as many of you know, you lift up a lot of prayers. “Let me know she is okay. Let me know she is with you. Let me know you kept your promise,” were among my many prayers of those days.

 

You see, about four years before that day, after going to the visitation of a good friend and hero from high school, Matt DeYoung, I went to my now infamous prayer hill in Radburn’s “B” park. As you might imagine, when you are in your 20’s or younger and you see someone around your age in casket, it is an awful feeling. It throws everything off – it defies logic and the order of things. So I was already upset about that, but I also had other questions and prayers on my mind. My mother, Kate, was going through a particularly difficult time with her health and with life general. My prayers for her went something like, “Lord, when will it end for her! Can you please release her from her suffering!”

 

And then I was quiet for a few moments. And in that quiet, the following phrase entered my mind, “She will know joy.” And it was the first time I understood God communicating to me with words. Number one, because I don’t really talk like that. And I could tell that it was not coming from my mind – it just started bouncing around in there. I took as it an answer and a promise and started to head for the car to visit her.

 

I never told Kate about my “message” about her. But it never left me. And as her life in the next few years seemed to get worse and worse, I clung to my asking, seeking and knocking and the idea of “She will know joy.” How many times did I remind God of His promise? Countless. The waiting is always the hardest part.

 

And then Kate died. Her broken heart finally broke altogether, depriving her beautiful mind of oxygen for too long. This is knowing joy, you say? Hold on…

 

She died in ICU with her husband holding one hand, her younger son holding her other hand and her first son (me) at her feet – all together again, just as she wanted it all along – joy. Kate left behind the suffering, the illnesses, the hurt, the guilt and the tears – joy. She entered into the presence and fullness and joy of Jesus where there is only joy, praise and adoration.

 

I asked. I sought. I knocked. And it was given to me. I found it. And it was opened to me. She now knew joy – complete joy. A joy, that as hard as I tried to give her here on earth, it could never come close. Is this the way I would have liked it? Absolutely not. But here is what I can tell you without any doubt: God hears our prayers. God answers our prayers – every time. God answers prayers in the way that is best for us and for those for whom we pray. God answers prayers in His own time.  

 

In His time, there we were at the cemetery, the sunshine, the playful, joyful breeze, the gift of the flowers back to us confirmed to me deep in my soul, that the Lord had heard my prayers and answered them…and would teach me that He always would – sometimes the way I expect, but most times not – but always answering with His best.

 

Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. “How much more will your Father in heaven, give good things to those who ask him!”

 

Amen.

 

Discussion Questions

1. Are you asking, seeking and knocking about something in your life right now? Do you believe He will answer? Why or why not?
2. Is there something you have been afraid to ask Him for – because you don’t think He will give it to you? How about now?
3. How do you think God defines the “good things” He wants to give us?
4. Do you have an answered prayer story? Please email me back and share it.

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