Prodigal:  Sometimes I just don’t want to suffer.

Me:  Yes, but that is how we become more like Christ.

Prodigal:  That makes me love Christ even more.

 

This is from the book The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

 

The death of Jesus was qualitatively different from any other death.  The physical pain was nothing compared to the spiritual experience of cosmic abandonment.   Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore, and imprisonment.  On the cross he went beyond even the worst torture, and imprisonment.  On the cross he went human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours.  In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken.  Why did he do it?  The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation.  He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us.

 

My covenant will I not break, nor later the thing that is gone out of my lips

Psalm 89:34

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Me: That tree has been there a while.

Prodigal: Yes, and it looks like it will remain.

I am looking straight ahead. I have stopped. I am not sure why I have stopped. But what is in front of me demands attention without even a sound. It is quiet. A warm breeze is in the air so that your skin does not feel a chill. The squirrels quickly run along the leaves on the ground which causes a rustling to reach your ears. There is no sense of threat. This area is not disturbed. Everything seems as it should.

I can’t take my eyes from what lays a couple of feet away. Most people probably would have kept on walking. Focused on the path, or focused on keeping a pace. Me I saw something different. It was a tree that was big, strong, and alone. The oak tree was not young. This mighty sapling had stood some time, winds, and rains.

As my eyes scanned the tree, something was not present. There were no fallen branches, dead leaves, or signs of disease on this old oak. No this tree, stood, and stretched out with its branches reaching for the sun light. It reminded me of a soul, of a blessing of the Lord.

What have you gone through oak? What have you seen, and yet you remain standing, and have domain on this area where you have been planted.

We cannot trust the Lord unless we learn from this oak. We have to survive, threats, seasons, weather, and our surroundings. We have to reach out to find the sun, nutrients, and to grow.

At first we are trying to strive so much, and are so small we are not noticed. But if we continue in years, and seasons, we grow without noticing. We grow, and spread out limbs. It is then that we being to resemble a tree. A tree that some people will stop to notice. It then that some will notice our strength, and notice that we have not succumb to the threats that seem always around us. Without saying, without trying people will know that we trust the Lord, and the Lord is with us.

But I will bless the person who puts his trust in me. He is like a tree growing near a stream and sending our roots to the water. It is not afraid when hot weather comes, because its leaves stay green; it has no worries when there is no rain; it keeps on bearing fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Prodigal:  My friend wanted to hear more about lukewarm people.

Me:  Well, I was just reading about it so I will share.

This is from the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan

Lukewarm people are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act.  They assume such action is for “extreme” Christians, not average ones.  Lukewarm people call “radical” what Jesus expected of all His followers.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says” (James 1:22)

“Anyone then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins” (James 4:17)

“What do you think?  There was a man who had two sons.  he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work today in the vineyard. “I will not,” he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.  The the father went to the other son and said the same thing.  He answered, “I will sit, but he did not go.  Which of the two did what his father wanted?  “The first, ” they answered” (Matt 21:28-31).

We are all called to stand for Christ.  That means the radical will happen because standing firm, and not compromising today means that we will have enemies.  That means that people will hurt us, and disappoint us.  We are called to continue even when that happens.

O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.

Lamentations 3:58

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org