How many mistakes does one person make as they trundle through life? That's what I would like to
know! It seems I have made so many in my life, it's extraordinary!
The answer floored me! I was gobsmacked when she said she couldn't go out with me. I was heartbroken. She was breaking up with me. Oh no!
I was so upset (hmmm) that I decided to go out to a Youth Group meeting that weekend with my mate Al. I said if I met another girl, then he would have to go home another way and not by my car. As you can see, I had my eye out for someone else. I wasn't that upset by the break-up I had just endured. Maybe I should have been!
I met SueAnn that night, and little did I know that this relationship would see us through heaps of married years. Anyway, that next night, as SueAnn and I went out, there was Grace, all out with lots of our friends, and I got a bit of a shock. I was with my brand-new girlfriend, SueAnn, and here was Grace, out with lots of others.
She saw me, and I saw her, and she burst into tears and got into a car with lots of other young people and took off. Apparently, she didn't mean to break up with me. When she said she couldn't go out with me, she meant just for that particular night, as she was feeling a tad sick. Why didn't she say that? Great question! Anyway...
Lots of our friends turned away from me because of this, and I couldn't help but feel pretty sad about the whole thing, but as it turned out, SueAnn and I had a fantastic relationship, and even though Grace made us feel totally way out of the picture, it all turned out remarkably well.
Made me think of the Prodigal Son, which is the parable that Jesus told his disciples, and also the Pharisees and a lot of others who were there. Actually, the time of his crucifixion was drawing nearer, and of course, Jesus knew all about this.
The story that Jesus told reminded me of the mistake I made those years ago, and the young son in the parable also made a mistake. He wanted more out of life, and he told his old dad that is extremely what he wanted.
If you want to read the parable of the "Prodigal Son," you can read it in the Bible in Luke 15: 11-32. The main verse and the linchpin of the whole thing is what Jesus said in verse 31, when the old dad says, "My son, You are always with me, and everything I have is yours."
In that parable, the young man's old Dad said that to his eldest son after the young one had returned and well after he'd made a whole lot of mistakes and wasted all of his dad's money. He ended up with nothing, and he came back to his dad and asked for forgiveness. Dad responded because he loved his son and was so pleased to have him back.
Pretty amazing verse. What Jesus is saying here through this parable is that he wants us to come to him and offers us everything. Absolutely everything! All we have to do is come to him and ask him to enter our lives and become our number one.
Jesus also had a rebuke for the Pharisees who had begun grumbling about all the people whom Jesus associated with. They got themselves in a bit of a knot when they saw all their so-called sinners and even tax-collectors all gathering around Jesus.
Jesus was ever open to people who had to take the lower end of the scale when it came to the Pharisees, who deemed people way below them and always put them down. The Pharisees were constantly shocked when Jesus mixed with the lower end of society.
The very fact that Jesus always spoke to the people, always chided the Pharisees for their superiority, and always told them exactly what they had to do to come to God in the first place. They had to put God first in their lives and never put anyone down.
All that was a huge lesson for so many people back then, and even today, the same lesson is still strong, and we should really take a page out of their book and listen to what Jesus is saying to us today.
We need to always put God first in everything, and he needs to take first place over everyone and everything we do.
Back to the parable that Jesus told, when at the end, when the younger son returned to the fold, and his dad made him feel very welcome, it was the older brother who made life a little strange when he went to old dad and complained about his kid brother!
He virtually said (my words) - Hey, Dad! He's come back, and you have welcomed him after everything he did, and he took all of your money that you gave him, and he wasted the entire lot! I was the one who stayed home and worked like crazy, and now he's back, you have thrown him this big welcoming party.
The dad returned and said, "Son, all that I have is yours. But your brother was lost, and now he is found."
We were lost when we didn't acknowledge Jesus at all. And all we thought about was us and our lives. We didn't really worry about anyone or anything else in life. We were number one in pretty much every situation in which we found ourselves. In a crowd, driving on the roads, lining up at supermarkets - you name it.
When Jesus comes into our lives and when we accept what he did on Calvary to die and pay for our sins and our lives, and how he rose again to life and made a way for us when our time comes to leave this place, we can change so much. Jesus comes first before everyone we know, and before everything we do, and everything just falls into place. It's truly miraculous and amazing.
Hope you are doing ok in this often crazy walk of life that we are in. Jesus loves you so much, and he really wants you to ask him into your life to lead you.
Regardless of what you have done or how you are living at the moment, God loves you so much, and he knows that Jesus paid for your sins and mine, and all we have to do is accept and ask God into our lives.
God bless you, and I hope to see you soon
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