The Running Father
This holiday season has been wonderful, and a needed time of rest. As much as I love my job and adore the students I work with each day, I appreciate the slower pace these breaks provide. I find myself in a rhythm of rest that calms and centers me.
The fall was filled with adjusting to a new job, completing a master’s program, trying to figure out how to run a booster club successfully, driving my daughter to speech tournaments, and watching her take the stage for theater. It was easily the busiest fall we have experienced to date. And it was fun, so very fun, but as I sat down for what felt like the first time in months as we began our Christmas break, I realized how tired I am. Overwhelmingly grateful? Absolutely. Beyond thrilled to be where I am? One hundred percent. But also, in need of rest’s rhythm.
As I sat on the couch this morning, wrapped in a blanket and enjoying a warm cup of coffee I began reading Kristi McLelland’s book, Rediscovering Israel. Kristi is my favorite biblical teachers, a mentor, and a treasured friend. She has a way of making Scripture come to life and often causes me to stop and consider how I am thinking about Scripture. This morning was no different.
I was only on page 26 when Kristi, once again, stopped me in my tracks. She writes, “The Bible doesn’t say that we have to go find God. From beginning to end, the biblical narrative communicates that God is coming for us!” She goes on to share a mentor of hers often said, “It’s a maybe prayer when you pray for someone to come home, because maybe they will and maybe they won’t. But a prayer you can pray all day every day, that you can rest assured God will answer, is a prayer for God to go get the lost!”
And then, the line that caused a much-needed shift in my thinking, “This shifts us from offering prayers of desperation to prayers anchored in expectancy. God is a God who comes and gets us when we are lost. That is who He is! God meets His people exactly where they are, but He refuses to leave them there. God brings us home.”
As I type, I am listening to “Constant” by Pursue Worship sang by Zahriya Zachary and it could not be more perfect. Tears are streaming down my face because God has been and will always be constant. Not once has he left my side. When I have run, when I have wandered, he has run after me and brought me home. Faithfully, he has always brought me home. It is who he is. It is his very heart.
I am thinking of the people I have been praying to return but today I am changing my prayer. Today, as I am looking out the window watching the rain fall, I am asking God to go get them. My heart might as well be yelling, “Run God, run! Go get your children!” And he will. I know he will because that is what he does and who he is.