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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I
called my son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from Me. They
sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught
Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who
healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To
them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to
feed them.”
“Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule
over them because they refuse to repent?
A sword will flash in their cities; it will devour their false prophets and
put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from Me. Even
though they call me God Most High, I will by no means exalt them.”
Hosea 11:1-7
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
I grew up in a great place, a small town in Western
Pennsylvania, where I was raised by two wonderful, God-given parents who
brought me up to be the kind of man I needed to be. In particular, my mother
took me to church on Sundays, ensuring I sat in worship and participated in
Sunday School. By the time I reached my teens, I was an acolyte at church and
also played my trumpet from time to time, accompanying the choir. I loved my pastor,
the Reverend Darr Briggs (still do), the Lord both He and I served.
But then something terrible happened.
You see, I got older and into my twenties, enlisting in the
United States Navy and leaving my hometown for military service. Unfortunately,
I also left my faith life behind.
Yes, for about ten years, I drifted away from the Lord,
consumed by my life in the Navy and the family I started, a family which
included a wife and two adorable daughters. I was successful beyond my dreams
and doing very well in my career. By worldly standards, everything was great.
But underneath, serious problems were brewing. I was away
from my wife and kids too much and placed no priority on leading my family
spiritually. Church was not even on my schedule as I was too consumed by
seeking more and more prestige and promotion, a quest that also started to
subtract from my relationship with my wife. Soon, she looked for love elsewhere
and found it with my next door neighbor, a revelation that not only destroyed our
marriage and fragmented my relationship with my children but also submerged me
deeper into a dark place where faith might have been able to shine into if I
had allowed it to. This was rock bottom after my drifting away.
I stayed there for three years, ever building a greater
resentment and anger toward my ex-wife for what she had done. It was easier to
blame her than it was to look in the mirror and see just how flawed I had been
as well. This anger slowly poisoned me from the inside out and who know what
had happened if the Lord didn’t intervene.
As we look at the opening verses from Hosea 11, we find the
people of God having drifted away from the Lord themselves. Look again at these
words:
“When Israel was a
child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more they were
called, the more they went away from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they
burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by
the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with
cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a
little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.”
“Will they not return
to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? A sword will flash in their cities; it will
devour their false prophets and put an end to their plans. My people are
determined to turn from Me. Even though they call me God Most High, I will by
no means exalt them.” Hosea 11:1-7
In their earliest days of following God, the Israelites were
obedient to Him and living in His favor, draped in His love for them. But note
what happened as time went on. The people of God turned away from Him, opting
to give their devotion and affection to false gods such as the Baals, gods
which they “burned incense to.” God had spent a lot of time bringing the
Israelites up to be the people He wanted them to be, nurturing and teaching
them along the way. And yet, they drifted away from Him, refusing to recognize
their sins and repent of them. They were determined to turn from God and so He
did something to get their attention. He sent them away into seventy years of
exile to let them think about life without Him because that’s the kind of life
they would live. Such is what happens when the people of God decide to drift
away from Him and follow their own desires. In the end translation, they do not
end up exalted.
That’s what certainly what happened to me. My drifting away
from God and infatuation with my career and all its trappings only left me in a
place where I, like the Old Testament Israelites, lost everything of meaning to
me in order for God to teach me a lesson.
The people of God in Hosea’s day lost their homes, their
nation, and their lifestyle as they went off into captivity and oppression.
I lost my family and was left with nothing except for the
career I valued more than anything else, including God. My three years in the
wake of my divorce was my own personal exile where I got to see the dark
recesses of life where one can go when they choose to drift away from the Lord.
But these parallel stories, the account of the Old Testament
Israelites and mine, have happy endings.
For after the people of God had served their seventy year
penalty at the hands of the Babylonians, God made the way for them to come home
to Canaan and rebuild their homes, their lives, and their relationship with
Him. In other words, those who had drifted from Him were brought back and
reconciliation happened.
For me, this return to the Lord and its associated came when
I met a woman who has been my wife for nearly 24 years now as the Lord gave me
a second chance to love again, this time leading my family spiritually and in
obedience to Him. When we met, one of the first things Grace said to me was
that if we were going to have a relationship, the Lord had to be first. I
agreed while deep inside I was a raging ball of anxiety over all the years I
had lived apart from God. That anxiety was soon replaced by an overwhelming
feeling of acceptance as God took me back into His arms, loved me, and showed
me everything I had been missing. I will never forget the amazing nature of His
grace and mercy and forgiveness and love as He welcomed me back to Him, one of
His lost ones who now had been found. Truly, I was a model prodigal son.
Friends, I don’t know where you are today in your faith
life.
Maybe you’ve always been strong and resolute in your faith,
never having fallen away.
Maybe you have drifted away from the Lord like I did nearly
a quarter century ago and are living void of Him today.
Maybe you have never walked with the Lord at all.
I don’t know where you might be in your standing with Him
but I do know three things:
1. God doesn’t favor us turning away from Him.
2. He will set about circumstances in our lives to show us
we will royally mess up our lives if we try to live apart from Him.
3. He is always seeking to bring us back to Him, to welcome
those who may have drifted away before setting them on the right path, a path
paved in His righteousness, a path traveled with Him by our side as He brings
us His grace and mercy in abundance.
The bottom line is that the Lord is always seeking and
hoping for His lost ones to return to Him. If you’re one of them who have
drifted away, make today the day you come back to God for good.
Take it from someone who has returned when I say you’ll
never regret it.
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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