Skip to main content

'The LORD's'

My heart is to pray for those who have once tasted that God was real. Europe and the United States have had staggering believers once in history. Some data would infer that the numbers have declined, particularly for Europe.

Probably their families have once talked to them about God and what He has like. And I just wonder if people still have that memory with them.

The good thing about God as He reveals in the prodigal son is that He is a searcher. He is a seeker. He looks for people. He doesn't wait till people get to their senses or till people can change. He already knows you can't. That's why He seeks you. He seeks people. (Just read the Parable of the Lost Coin, The Parable of the Lost Sheep, and the story of the prodigal son). God is an endless seeker.

Last week, I thought I was alright. Trying to play it safe. Not do any heavy ministry for now. Sometimes the most faithful also turn to be the most whiny - sometimes - don't you think? =) God, I am too tired. I don't want to be watch guard anymore. I just want a vacation in an angry defiant attitude. And then you know what God does, He won't push you if you don't want to. So He remained silent. I thought I'll be okay. But I found my desire for the things of the faith showing early signs of waning. I couldn't point my finger what was wrong. 

Apparently I made a mistake when I said that. Because when I watched Finding Nemo - Thank goodness for cartoons! - I felt my Father in heaven nudge me gently as if He was searching for me, calling me back. And I knew I was not with Him - really connecting with Him - for a few days. And it was because I didn't want to do the ministry He entrusted to me anymore even just for those few days and because I answered Him back by rebelling against my calling. You see when we disobey something God has clearly said, that's turning away already from God, something called 'sin'. 

Do I think I deserve to rest sometime? Yes. Legitimate needs. But anything not done in faith according to the Bible counts as sin. And sin is sin. So yes, I had the feeling of what it means to be lost again for those days.

But the good news is that just like wearing a smartwatch, God has some sort of homing device to find us. And He can send beeps - independent of man's action - just to gently get our attention. "Read your Bible Lance I have something to say to you." "Call Maggie on the phone and tell her how you broke the window." "Take time off this weekend Dennis. You need to rest. And we need to talk." The good news is if you considered yourself once a believer, you are wearing that homing device still. It is never too late for you to come back to God and pick up where you have left off.

God calls us from the smartphone....

Ring... Ring... We click the receiving end...Beep...to receive the call, "Hello God! I miss you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me." And things can be the way they were, at least about the relationship and the connection.

It's amazing! I remember the time when I was lost in my life - yet again - haha! And I saw this movie When in Rome and there was this small old man in the story who had lost his wife for many years and when he felt what it was like to pursue a woman again (played by Kirsten Bell), he says he just missed being with his wife so much. He relishes in that familiar connection he felt when he had his wife and they were in love. The good thing about being a wife is that you are already a wife. You don't need to go back to friendship level to resume your responsibilities and relationship. You are already married! You are already the other's. You just need to apologize and pick off the relationship from where it was before. If the guy is forgiving, no need to go through another friendship level and then dating stage and so on just to bind the lost connection again.

I cried at that moment because it was as if God was speaking to my heart "Return to Me. It can be the same as it was before. You don't need to do so much levels for us to be right again. We can pick up where we've left off. You don't need to go through the friendship level, courtship level, the wedding level for you to come back. When you come back, you are still my wife and my bride. Nothing in our relationship would have changed. I can make it new again. Only Return to Me."

Sometimes when we fail, we try to do so many things. Make more effort to please God again, hoping we won't fail. The good thing about God is He won't say, "Oh Danny. You blew it again. You keep blowing it. You screw things up again. Come back to me when you're useful to my strategy for the world." No.....He won't. Perhaps human relationships are dispensable. But with God, they are not. We are so not easy to replace by something flashier, something brand new and more tech-y. No. We are indispensable to God because God is after relationship with us more than our works. And that's the same connection He keeps teaching us and wanting us to embody (though not perfect)... That He considers RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM AND PEOPLE AS INDISPENSABLE.

I was in that boat - once - about failing. I failed God and I didn't know where to begin where we have left off. Try to be good. Do things more faithfully. Try to not fail. But God would just say, Hey, stop striving and rest in my love. "Though we are faithless, He remains faithful," the Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:13.

And God sent me this song that sings:

I have longed to hold you in my arms
And take all of your fear away
I will take your filthy rags and make them clean
If you receive my love, if you will receive my love
Return to Me and hear my Spirit say
In repentance and rest is your salvation
In quietness and trust is your strength


God is a seeking God. He looks for His lost and stray ones. He is that passionate. Maybe you used to be in that ranks. So faithful. Just like Peter you once declared "God even if others leave you, I will never leave you." And remember his devastation after the second crow of the rooster. Even the strongest and the most "childishly passionate" of the disciples had failed Jesus.

Our Bible characters are not perfect. If you were to see them, really read their lives, they were not immaculate but we still emulate them and honor them. Why? Because God beautifully turned the weaknesses into strength, turned their good times - times when they were faithful - to their glorious days, and by His grace, blessed and still worked for their good when they returned to God (Source: Beth Moore, It's Tough Being a Woman)

Are you a returning pigeon? Is God beeping your smartwatch gently calling you home? Don't worry. I have been there. But just know that He is still faithful and He is still good. A God who will work out your weaknesses, failures, and sins as you turn them over and surrender them at His feet. He will still make something out of your life. It's never too late. Answer that smartwatch and turn towards home.

Oh and one more thing. The verse writes about people being "the Lord's" on their wrist. One deposit I know of that God gave to us is the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we have received it, the Spirit is still there. You don't necessarily lose it and hoping you would be under God's good graces to receive it again. Just align your life with the call of the Lord for you. Do the thing that He last said. Read your Bible again. Pray. Attend a small group. Align your life with God's voice and you will be in the wings of the Spirit once more.

The Bible says "It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us." 2 Corinthians 1:21-22

Our salvation secure. The Holy Spirit He has given you freely will remind you whose you belong. You are the Lord's. God is just reminding you now You are the Lord's. Come back to God and He will forgive.

Amen.

I, even I, am he who blots out
    your transgressions, for my own sake,    and remembers your sins no more."
Isaiah 43:25

Sources:

Moore, Beth, Esther: It's Tough Being a Woman (LifeWay Christian Resources, 2008).

Comments