found

Do you think about God? Do you wonder if he is real? If he is angry or disappointed with you? I have wondered all of these questions at different times in my life. Before I chose to follow Jesus I was lost. I was shattered into a million pieces and my heart was broken. My mind was confused and all I wanted was to feel better. I sought after worldly things in hopes to fill the space only God could fill. The problem was it never helped or healed me, it just numbed the pain for a short time. 

The day I chose to follow Jesus was the day I left temporary behind. It died along with my pursuit to make myself whole. My pain and my struggles didn’t go away that day but the burden was removed and replaced with Gods grace and forgiveness. He didn’t take it all away or magically put me back together because that would not have been for my good. An apprentice doesn’t become like his teacher overnight. Its the process of apprenticing that we learn to be like our creator. He doesn’t wave a magic wand, he gently helps us pick up the shattered pieces and puts us back to together one step at a time. 

Before I said yes to Jesus, I believed I was too messed up for him and I believed being a christian meant you had to be perfect. There was no way I could be perfect and I had way too much to clean up and change before God would want me. I believed I couldn’t seek or pursue him before I made the decision to follow him. I didn’t understand that seeking comes before finding. Have you ever felt this way?

Although these feelings are natural, doesn’t mean they are true. There is a story in the Bible about a father and his 2 sons. One son works hard, wanting to please his father. The other son wants to make his own decisions apart from his father. So he asks his father for his inheritance to leave and the father agrees. The son leaves and pursues all of his own passions. He ends up broke, hungry and humiliated and finally makes the decision to come home to his father. On the journey home he is embarrassed and expecting his father to be angry and disappointed with him. As he is approaching, the father sees him from a far and runs out to greet him. He throws his arms around him and kisses him. The son immediately says that he has sinned against heaven and his father. But the father says to his servants to bring the finest robe to put on him and has a feast prepared for him to celebrate his return home. You see this parable Jesus taught is a picture of Gods love and forgivness for us. God is the father who has granted us free will to chose our love not to have it forced on us. And he patiently waits for our return not with anger but with compassion. 

When we return, God will not magically fix us because its in the process that we become like our maker. As he puts the pieces back together it will take time, all of our life in fact. Some pieces will hurt more  and some pieces will be lost or too broken to put back. But our maker has something new and beautiful he will use to replace what has been lost. 

This weekend was a hard one for me. I have been walking with Jesus for almost 14 years and still have days or weekends where I ask all of those questions again. Where I wander from the father and struggle in my own thoughts and fears. Where anxiety and sadness takes over like a smoke cloud I cannot escape. Weekends where I am lying alone in a field far from my fathers house unwilling to call for him to rescue me. Its all I can do to whimper and cry out the words help me. Jesus help me, I can’t do it. Jesus comes running to scoop me up and carry me home. 

I am still not whole, and still not made complete but I am found and I am alive. Life with Jesus is not about being perfect its about a perfect father that sees our imperfections and loves us anyways. Our apprenticeship doesn’t have a time limit. Its lifelong and its all that we need because everything else in this world will pass away but the love of the father is forever. 

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

Mathew 11 28-30