Going on in my Head

Have you ever experienced a time where God seems to be telling you or a group the same thing? Everyone keeps coming across similar scriptures, all the preachers are teaching about the same idea?

Its pretty cool how things align like that sometimes.

This week, the story of the prodigal son seems to be everywhere I turn. You can find it in Luke 15.

To be honest, I am kind of at a loss of why this scripture keeps popping up in my life.

It is a great metaphor. A boy asks for his inheritance while his father is still alive, runs off and blows it. He does everything he thinks he wants to do but ends up broke and alone. He's living in a pig pen and realizes even his father's servants lived better back home. He swallows his pride and decides to go home and ask his father to at least accept him as a servant. Except, when he arrives home, he finds his father filled with joy at his return, and they enjoy a great feast.

Simply put, we are the prodigal son, God is our father.

We may run from Him, do everything He warned us not to do, we may end up living in the pig pen, we may be ashamed to turn back to Him. But He is anxiously awaiting our return.

God loves us.

No doubt, it is a great passage, but I had to think through how this applies to me right now.

Then I remembered that I had been praying for some encouragement. Nothing was really wrong, but I was just getting worn out, seemingly beaten down and tired. I could see some evidence of weariness in my relationship with God and prayed for Him to give me a little boost. Kind of a Red Bull for my soul.

I'm now realizing that this is one of the most joyful scriptures there is in the Bible. The more I meditate on it, the happier I become.

This passage is telling me that I can never screw up too much for God. The mistakes I've made are in the past. He loves me and just wants me to be with Him.

Yes, there are many other attributes of God, but what sticks out through this story is His love.

To me, the unending love of God is something that we can never think about enough.

If we don't focus on God's love, we end up like the prodigal son's older brother. Focused only on his father's wealth, and his financial loss. If we become the older brother, we miss the celebration, and the joy of God's love, just like he missed the point of the feast.

So I've decided that this lesson is a rather simple one: go back sooner to God, don't wallow in self pity, bask in His love and mercy, be more thankful for His grace, and rejoice!