06/15/2024
This morning, my devotional reading was titled "Trouble Attracts Attention" and spoke to the fact that God uses trouble for various purposes, but that in so doing it is often used to redirect our busy lives towards Him. Then it concluded with the statement "Blessed is trouble when it accomplishes this in people's lives!"
We can get caught up in the business of our worldly life to the point where we forget about God, and Jesus Christ, altogether; it is like driving to work and suddenly realizing that we can’t remember how we got to where we are. It is a scary feeling, and so is traveling through our spiritual lives and suddenly realizing that we have gone a great distance without a conscious thought of the Lord. Trouble can do many things like breaking our pride, and it can humble us before the Lord; it can bring us to our knees in prayer, but it can also gently stop us and cause the love within us to well up and flow forth in prayer… and thusly return our thoughts to our Heavenly Father.
“"But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”
Luke 15:17-18 ESV
In this story of the prodigal son, Jesus gives us an example of a son who had to be humbled and reawakened before he would return to his father, but even as it shows us the father's joy and forgiveness at the return of his son, it leaves us to contemplate the depth of that father's concern as he watched the road and waited for his wayward son to realize the error of his ways.
“And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”
Luke 15:20 ESV
On the one hand there was a lesson being taught to the son by the trouble he had brought upon himself, but on the other hand there was a lesson of love and forgiveness being taught to us by the father... Perhaps even a lesson in persistent prayer.
Have you ever been humbled by circumstance or guilt? Have you ever come to a parent and confessed a wrong doing? This happens in most of our lives. Our trouble and guilt having broken our wills and brought us in contrition before our earthly parents… and also before God.
I have been on both sides of the prodigal son story, but today I am thinking of a child who had lost their way and when the trouble they encountered had worked its lesson... Returned home. I was overcome with joy and relief; my forgiveness was instant and complete as I celebrated the return of the one who had been lost but was now found.
While my child was lost and seeking something in the world that only God could provide, I prayed. I prayed day and night, with my heart breaking as I knelt, but as my prayers continued, I would try each day to fix the problem myself... It didn't work. Finally, in complete desperation and humility, I handed the situation to God and trusted in Him. God smiled at my return, and then gave me my child back. Did the father of the prodigal son pray for his son like this?
We are basically simple people. We see problems in a single dimension until we are finally forced to do otherwise, but God works out His will in an incredibly complex way and it resembles an interwoven fabric that is the product of a loom. In the course of being woven it touches the weft, the heddle, the shuttle, the reed, the take up roll, the loom itself, the weaver’s hand, the purchaser of the cloth, and so many others as they view it. In what appears to us to be a simple problem and lesson, God transforms and uses the thread of our problems to make an incredibly beautiful and complex tapestry. In this way our faith is being woven into a thing of incredible beauty. Lives are being touched in ways we can't possibly see until at last the cloth is removed from the loom and its detail is revealed to us in its entirety.
So what was the father of the wayward son doing as his son was squandering his inheritance and was finally starving? I think he was doing what parents still do today... he was in prayer day after day; he was weeping in his prayer closet for God to intercede. He was trying to fix the problem himself, and then in desperation, he turned back to God in complete trust and humility... He was being pulled through the loom of faith just as his son was.
This morning let's pray for our families and the troubles that we experience within them. Let's ask God to take the shuttle from our hand and to weave our family into an amazing tapestry of love and faith. Let's bring our cares before Him until we either see our own child coming home, or find ourselves to be that son who is walking the road home. On that day, whether we are the father, or the son, we will see our Heavenly Father running to rejoice with us, and He will have a song of joy on his lips.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for hearing my desperate cries as I pray for my family. Hear me as I ask you to strengthen me in my faith, and to give me the persistence in prayer, and trust in you, that is needed as I wait on the road just as the father of the prodigal son did. Help me as I stand from dawn to dusk watching and praying, and remind me to keep a lamp lit in the window each night. Father I trust in you, and I keep the table set and the fatted calf ready for the homecoming feast that I am certain will come. Holy, Holy, Holy are you our God who speaks to fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters, alike. Holy are you who weaves every trouble we face into something good, beautiful, and righteous, because it is your will that none should be lost, or perish. Your mercy and grace are poured out over us through Jesus Christ, even as our prayers are being brought before you in golden bowls, surrounded by the sweet smell of incense, and made ready for your hand. Here they will await the fulfillment of your promised provision. So it is that we pray for our troubles to be lifted from us, and the tapestry of our faith and family to be woven by your hand into a thing of eternal beauty. We give you all the glory Holy Father as we come together on the road, and celebrate the reestablishment of what you have created to be righteous, and perfected in our love for you and one another. This is your will… may it be done.
Amen!
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9 ESV
Rich Forbes