Let me share with you a devotional I was reading earlier this evening. Maybe it will speak to you as it did me.
The woman is telling the story of her 7 year old running away. She had a good hunch as to where she was going so as the girl left, she simply said that she loved her and was always welcome to return. The mom called the friends and let them know her little girl was heading that way. A few hours later she called the friends again and asked them to give the girl the message “We love you and miss you and hope you’ll be home for dinner” The girl comes home soon after crying and runs to her mother’s arms. After a bit, the girl says “That’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
Here I will directly quote the author.
“We all know spiritual runaways, people who have turned their backs on God. Many, like the prodigal son, have gone to the far country only to discover that it wasn’t even a nice place to visit, much less a place to live permanently. Others have simply made short side trips in their deviation from the pathway God intends for them to take. In every case, the Lord is waiting to recieve them. Because he loves them, he is waiting to welcome them back and restore them. What a wonderfully loving, patient Father is our God.”
The part I love about that is that God not only wants to welcome us back, but He wants to restore us. Completely. He does not want us to hang on to the mistakes we have made. He wants to take them all away and bring us back into perfect relationship with Him. In our earthliness we cannot fathom the ability to “forgive and forget”. We are human and a piece of previous sins and hurts will try to linger in our minds and in our hearts. It is only through God can we truly move past these things.
