Everybody, Always

The father in Jesus’ story ran toward the son too. When the father
found out the son wasn’t lost anymore, he celebrated in ways I couldn’t
when I found my trashed truck. I think I know why. There was no shame.
The father wasn’t thinking about how badly the son had messed up. The
son wasn’t thinking about it either. They both knew the son had steered
his life right off a cliff, but somehow they got past the shame of the
failure and got to the celebration of being together once again.
Do lots of that. Find your way back to the people you’ve loved and
who have loved you. Figure out who you’ve broken your rhythm with.
Don’t let the misunderstanding decide your future. If you lost your way
with God, let Him close the distance between you and start the
celebration again. We’re all in the same truck when it comes to our need
for love and acceptance and forgiveness.
What made sense to me when I first heard about Jesus is how He
doesn’t give us a bunch of directions intended to manipulate our behavior
or control our conduct. Instead, He has beautiful hopes for us and has told
us what those are, but He isn’t scowling at us when we’re not yet ready to
have those same hopes for ourselves. He won’t love us more or less based
on how we act, and He’s more interested in our hearts than all the things
we do. He’s not stuck telling us what to do, when to do it, or what we
want either. Far better, He continues to tell us through our successes and
our mistakes who we are, and here’s what He wants us to know—we are
His.