Children Return Home

The relationship between a child and a parent is so telling of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. We raise our kids in love, give them everything we possibly can to make them healthy and happy… We love them so much we’d die for them… Yet when they are no longer little children, the world starts pulling them in different directions.. tempting them with counterfeit relationships as they face a burning desire within to move on from the world of security they’ve known… to go out and explore.. to remove the strings that tie them to home. And as you try to protect them and guide them, they start seeing you as an enemy – the one holding them back and restraining them. They don’t like your advice, they think you’re stupid and old fashioned… If you’ve had teenagers, you probably know what I’m speaking of.. I feel like this is what we do with God in many ways. We’re born into a sense of wonder and joy. Our imaginations are connected to the source of love.. but as we grow we want something else… to be independent from him… to go at it alone and explore our “self-life” using the talents and gifts he’s given us.. In the parable of the prodigal son, that boy took his gifts from his Father and left Him… went out into the world and ended up in a pig’s pen.. begging for food. Yet when he returned home, wishing to be just a servant in his fathers kindgom, as he no longer felt worthy to be called a son, the Father welcomed him with open arms and threw a party to celebrate that His son had come home. Last night I was in prayer and I felt the Lord showing me His heart’s desire… for His children to come home to him. Not a physical place of travel.. much bigger than that.. a heartfelt place where the source of Love is reconnected with His sons and daughters in a way that our number one cry from within is to be wrapped in the arms of our Father… to rest in Him and abide in Him as our place of refuge…that secret place where Jesus resides and we in Him and Him in us.