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A
Question From God
I was lying in bed a while back, praying.
Not the ordinary kind of prayer.
Deep, passionate, heart prayer.
I had disobeyed. No, I
had not “stumbled” or “fallen” into sin.
I had deliberately chosen to disobey God.
I knew it at the time and was feeling it now.
I was in agony. It
wasn't just the guilt, it was that I had broken the heart of my Heavenly
Father. My prayers went something like this…
“God I feel awful. I
have sinned against you again. Why
do you put up with me? I
don’t deserve a relationship with You or Your love or forgiveness.
I have turned against You and hurt someone else in the process. I am guilty. I
feel so bad for disobeying You. Why
do you put up with me?”
As I was wallowing in my self-loathing, I heard God’s voice as
His Spirit quietly spoke to my spirit.
I figured He would and expected something like, “You’re right!
You are an idiot. Over and over and over you just keep blowing it. You
make me sick, but I have to forgive because I said I would.
But I’m putting you on probation.
So get it right.” That’s
what I expected. In the back
of my mind I thought it could also go like this, “Now, now, now.
I love you and forgive you. You
are my child so crawl up into my lap.”
That’s what I get for having preconceived ideas.
What I heard was a blunt question.
“When your kids mess up, what do you do?”
"I love them. I
discipline them if I have to. But
I reach out to them, pray for them and care for them even more than usual.
I do everything I can to restore them.
I help them know they are accepted and cared for through words and
hugs."
"Exactly! Now, if
you do that for your kids, don't you think that's how I'll treat you?
And more!"
"Wow!" I said through tears.
A couple days later, God spoke again, this time through a book.
"God expects more failure from you than you expect from
yourself." On the
surface, that sounds strange and disheartening.
But stay with me here. It
is not that He WANTS us to fail; it's just that He knows us, that we will
fall or fail from time to time. We
have the idea that we should be perfect and when we aren't we are
surprised at ourselves. God
knows that we are not perfect. And
when we fall or fail, He is not surprised, but ready to forgive and help
us up. In fact, when we start believing we are perfect, He'll stick
out His foot and trip us up so we'll come back to Him. Pride always causes a fall.
I know what some of you are thinking… "That kind of talking
will cause people to think it's OK to do whatever they want to do.
They'll take it as a license to sin."
No, not if they are grabbed by God's love.
Rather than giving me license, God's words caused me to desire to
live in deeper obedience than ever before.
I don't want to disappoint Him, I don't want to experience the
separation, I don't want to break His heart.
Because I have experienced His forgiving Daddy love.
I am still overwhelmed by God's words to me.
Out of His love and faithfulness He picked me up, dusted me off,
sat me on His lap for a while, and then placed on His path again.
He has engulfed me with His ungraspable love and I am more
motivated to please Him than ever before.
Have you and are you? I
hope so. If not, why not
today?
Crawl up on to His lap to experience ultimate love.
You can trust Him.
"The LORD appeared to us in
the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have
drawn you with loving-kindness." Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)
"And so we should not be like cringing, fearful slaves, but we should behave like God's very own children, adopted into the bosom of his family, and calling to him, "Father, Father (Daddy, Daddy)."" Romans 8:15 (TLB) 
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