“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “aReturn to Me with all your heart”
Joel 2:12a (NAU)
Shirley wept uncontrollably. Her daughter, Katie, refused to go to church and was running full steam away from God. Shirley had tried every thing she knew to do. She had prayed for Katie. She had searched the Scripture for answers. She had asked friends and pastors for counsel. She had attempted conversations with Katie about her spiritual life only to be rebuffed and insulted. Shirley was close to hopelessness.
One Saturday, while taking her morning walk in the city park, her attention was drawn to an elder gentleman trudging toward the lake with a bag in his hand. Silently she watched as a flock of visiting, Canadian geese lifted off the water and began a steep ascent away from the lake. The old gentleman suddenly began running along the lakeside and yelling, “Come back, come back. Breakfast is here.” His legs finally gave out and he slumped onto a nearby bench. With obvious disappointment, he watched their v-shaped formation until it had almost disappeared. Then he began weeping softly in his handkerchief.
Shirley could not take her own eyes off the disappearing geese. Suddenly the formation did a huge u-turn and returned to land in the water just in front of the old gentleman’s bench. With loving words and gentle hands, he began spreading out kernels of corn on the ground along the lake’s edge and giggled with glee as the geese gobbled it all up then waggled around him begging for more.
Dear Father, thank you for your loving grace and mercy. Thank you for calling us to come back even as we are going out of sight. Enable us to hear your voice clearly through the space and time between us. Have mercy on our loved ones who have not yet returned. Please, dear Father, give them time to repent and come back to you. Grant that they may return soon rather than later. In Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN
Let us praise God for his grace and return to the joy of his salvation,
Pastor Smith