It depends on who gets there first

Ever known someone who desperately wanted to come to God or to come back to him but was really afraid?  

Let’s go back to the prodigal son again in Luke 15.  You know the story.   Dude gets dad’s money and takes off to “sow his wild oats.”  Spends everything. Finds himself wishing he could eat the slop he’s feeding pigs and decides even his dad’s servants eat better than that.  He decides to go see if his dad will hire him.

His dad approaches him with open arms — runs to him even, eager to embrace him and welcome him home.

But there’s another son.  A son who is really angry at his dad’s response to his brother.  Because he has been the “good son” who has never left his father’s house or done anything “really wrong.”   He does not have the ability to understand why his dad would even allow his son to come home — much less hug him and throw him a party.

I wonder what would have happened if the “good son” had seen his brother first.   What if he had been the first to greet him?  His words would have been something like, “WHAT are you doing here?  How dare you come back after the way you have treated our father.  Go before he sees you — you don’t deserve to be here!”

Too many times it is the “good” church members who see someone trying to come back to God first…. And they come compelled to stop them.   “Why are you here?  This is not a place you belong.  We don’t want you here!”

One of the things a friend of mine told me in high school was that the hardest thing about becoming a Christian was getting past other Christians to get to God.

This is a powerful reminder to me that I need to be like the dad in the story whenever someone wants to explore the idea of being a Christian.  I need to focus on the relationship, not the behavior, and make sure that I am letting them know that no matter what, grace is theirs.

When someone is attempting to find their way to God for the first time, or back to him after a rough patch in life, we need to be the arms of Jesus and welcome them with an embrace and a party — not condemning them for their sin or making them feel somehow that we are more worthy than they and that they don’t belong.  

This is an old song that I have shared before (back in October, even), but I can’t talk about this story because the song moves me so much every time I hear it.

https://youtu.be/pPen1jQrlhU

(This concept of this devotional is not mine — I got it from the book “Fall to Grace:  A Revolution of God, Self and Society” by Jay Bakker (Son of Jim and Tammy Faye).