LoveReign
a Love Affair with a SoveReign God
February 24th, 2023
HELP WANTED
I John 3:1-2, ‘Consider the kind of extravagant love the Father has lavished on us—He calls us children of God! It’s true; we are His beloved children. And in the same way the world didn’t recognize Him, the world does not recognize us either. My loved ones, we have been adopted into God’s family; and we are officially His children now. The full picture of our destiny is not yet clear, but we know this much: when Jesus appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is.’
It hadn’t always been like this. They’d had a nice home, a five-bedroom monstrosity that his wife complained about cleaning, whined about not having the rooms filled quickly enough, before too many bills had stacked up, making it impossible to pay the utilities and the mortgage. Then came the medical challenges, after the company closed the doors and the job went south, and the insurance canceled. What parent doesn’t do whatever it takes, including sacrificing a limb and other appendages, to repair what’s broken?
What happens when the thing you most wanted to save died anyway—no matter the effort and the cost? When—who you did everything for, mortgaged everything over—not only that dream but also that loved one, died too? So you lose everything trying to save the one thing that mattered, and suddenly, nothing else matters, but you lost that one thing anyway…Yet you have to keep going, don’t you? Somehow. What happens then?
He had never envisioned himself to be the individual standing in the midst of the median with a sign attached to his back and his front. He used to seriously feel humiliated for those he passed by, with their hands held out, their hopes visible for everyone to see. Now, he couldn’t look in a mirror, if he had one to gaze into. He couldn’t face himself if he had too. No way. The people who honk, the crazy statements some yell, like ‘Get a job!’ or ‘Hey, buddy, do you got some money you can spare?’ The partially eaten lunch someone hands off as if a meal pays the bills. The time someone gave him a six-pack of beer, and said, ‘Just be honest about it, man. That’s where your money will go.’ He gets it—he does. The ones who don’t need the help, but have learned a cheap, easy way to get by, have ruined it for those who really do. If he could just get enough to pay the mortgage and the bills, he could save the rest of the family, maybe, just maybe, he tells himself, even if he couldn’t save the one who had gotten everything he had to give.
~ We have all been there. That surprise announcement, an unexpected phone call, the unsuspecting person, a startling revelation, a tragic accident, the unforeseen, that sudden dread in the pit of our stomach, those words we never wanted to hear, the unknowing and the unraveling. What happens with the disappointments in the hands of an all-knowing, sovereign God? What is on the other side of the tarnished coin?
Homelessness is a real deal, he concurred. People actually do lose everything, and it is hard making a comeback. In fact, it’s not getting stuff back or a place to lay your head or some food for your belly that is the hardest. What is the hardest is getting your family back. After you let them down and they lose all faith and hope in you, garnering that again is nearly impossible. It took him forever, he thinks now, as he climbs in his economy car, the one without AC, with a cassette player shoved in the dash. He is leaving the simple fast-food chain heading to his second job at the movie theatre where he sells tickets to people needing an escape from everyday life. He smiles to himself, remembering when he took it all for granted. How he’d love now to simply sit down and watch a TV show, not to mention how he yearned to take his family out for a bucket of movie theatre popcorn and a flick. He is ordinarily grateful for the small two-bedroom apartment they are scrunched into now, as he chooses to not forget how it felt to sleep in a doorway, worried where his wife and children might be, letting go of the three-story house on Elm Avenue. He is thankfully aware and grateful for what little he has, recalling it hasn’t always been this way. Nor will it always be this way. The future is bright, and so is the Son Who taught him gratitude. After all, he is a three-story kind of guy too.
John 1:14, ‘The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes. The one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son. Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.’ (MSG)
“When we feel like we are not good enough to be loved by God, we should remember that God’s love is greater than our doubts. We must silence the sounds of condemnation so we can hear the voice of God’s loving assurance and remember that He has selected us to be part of His family”. (The Voice, Bible Gateway)
