I was terrified when I
logged into facebook the other day. A
great friend had posted a horrendous story guaranteed to give any parent of
young children a sleepless night. It is
a story like you may have experienced yourselves. It is a story of a lost
child. This is his story (but with a
little/lot of poetic license)!
It had been a fun day
enjoying the Sea Life adventure, but fun would turn to fear when in leaving he
finds that both of his children have gone missing. He starts to look around urgently and
thankfully the youngest is in view and scooped up and cuddled
appropriately. The oldest at five is
nowhere in sight. As time goes on the
search becomes more urgent, more panicky and more desperate. The search gets harder as whilst he looks
down the roads near the building which his son could have gone down, a
drawbridge opens, separating him and the building where his child was last
seen. It was a 4 minute delay as a boat
came through that felt more like 4 hours.
Time to think… What if he has fallen in the water and drowned? What if he has been abducted? What if? What if? And what if? Finally the drawbridge is down, and the
search commences, this time with tears
running down his cheeks, shouting with a voice that can only shake and with a
stomach that has turned to water. What if? What if? What if? And then…
thankfully the glorious sight of his son, also with tears running down his
cheeks and also shaking with panic, looking for his father with a couple who
have stopped to generously help him.
Then the wonderful embrace with more tears, but now tears of
relief. And what did he say? ‘Don’t ever
leave me again, you are too precious’.
‘I love you so much’. ‘You will never know what you mean to me’. ‘This is me at my happiest with you in my
arms’. ‘You are my child whom I
love’. Or similar words!
And as I reflected on this
story I realised that this is Gods story.
He had lost us, we had wandered off and the drawbridge was up. We were separated by God because we had turned
our backs on him. We had turned our
backs on love. We have done harm to ourselves,
to others and to God and the drawbridge was up.
And God has eyes that look like a power shower as he weeps whilst he
desperately tries to reach us, his children (Jeremiah 9:1- my translation)! But
Jesus came! The drawbridge is back
down! He has paid the penalty and the
partition has gone. Now God is this side
of the bridge. And he is looking. And he finds us looking all around for
meaning. To find what we were created
for and to be. And there are those who
know it is God that they were made for and with tears they spot him looking,
reaching out, tear stained and desperate and they reach in for the
embrace. And it is there that God says…
‘Don’t ever leave me again, you are too precious’. ‘I love you so much’. ‘You will never know
what you mean to me’. ‘This is me at my
happiest with you in my arms’. ‘You are
my child whom I love’. Or similar words!
I wonder how many of us know
the story of love but do not know it to the very depths of our being? I wonder how many of us have our identities
based on what others are and what we are not?
She is more caring than I am… he is a better parent… she is more
succesful than me… if only I could be more like them. This is rarely accurate as we tend to compare
the things we find difficult and then massively hype those to whom we
compare. And we rarely compare our
strengths with others, as often we see our strengths as irrevelant or not
important. I wonder how many of us base
our identities around the bad things we have done? The failures, the hurt, the pain, the
relationshps broken and the difficulties we have struggled through. I wonder how many of us base our identity on
what we have achieved? The
quaifications, the opinion of others, our reputation or money earned or as Ministers
perhaps on the number in our flock or the number of baptisms we have done! But our identity as Christians is that we are
children of God. That we were created by
him, rescued by him and loved by him for today and eternity. That we are unique masterpiece being made new
morning by morning.
May you know that you are a
child of God and may you know this fact to the very essence of your being. And it is the Holy Spirit that confirms this
to us (have a look at Romans 8). Why not
ask God to fill you with his Spirit? And
as you do so, may you know the wonderful experience of his loving embrace. And may you hear those incredible words,
‘Don’t ever leave me again, you are too precious’. ‘I love you so much’. ‘You will never know
what you mean to me’. ‘This is me at my
happiest with you in my arms’. ‘You are
my child whom I love’.
Here is a song to finish
with that I pray may help you into his presence to know his embrace…
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