I have this habit. Where when I get a new cd, I’ll start listening to it over and over. For several weeks. Especially if it’s a new artist I’m listening to. I want to feel like I know the person who is serenading me. I will listen to the cd over and over, and when someone asks me what I’m listening to and I tell them, and a few days later, they ask the same question and get the same answer, and they look at me like I’m weird. My sister doesn’t understand how I can listen to one artist over and over again. I love it though.
So anyway. A few weeks ago, I went out to Goldthwaite to lead at a Disciple Now for a friend. When I got there, I’d been listening to the new(est) Train cd, Save Me San Francisco, for about a week and a half (Credit here goes to my good friend Brett Levy). I was really enjoying it, and was kind of surprised that I’d never taken the time to check out this band before.
Like I said, I’m in Goldthwaite for this Disciple Now, and I’m having a blast hanging out with these 11th grade guys, and talking with them about what God has to say to us about love. And we’d lost a scavenger hunt, and I’d cost them 2 volleyball games out of four. But we were having a ton of fun.
The speaker for this Disciple Now was my good friend Nic Burleson, and on Saturday night, he brought his message from Luke 15. Some of the points he made were that God’s love is unwavering, God’s love is unconditional, and God’s love is unearned. He cited 2 Peter 3:9, Romans 5:8, and Isaiah 64:6 for each of these points respectively. But he said something early on, when talking about how God’s love is unwavering.
He was talking about in verse 20 where is says “But while he [the son] was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” So Nic was talking about the fact that when this son left he basically told his father, “You’re as good as dead to me, I want your money more than I want a relationship with you”, but this father never stopped loving his son. Never stopped hoping he’d come to his senses.
That line “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him…”. He’d been waiting. Every day. For God knows how long. He didn’t happen to be out on the front porch the day that son decided to come home, he was out there every day. Waiting for him. Thinking to himself, “Maybe today is the day he chooses to love me back”. And he went on to say, that’s how God feels about us. Whether we are someone who has not yet trusted fully in Jesus for salvation, or a believer who has gone off on their own. God sits in heaven and thinks “Maybe today is the day they choose to love me back”. For those of you who know me, I’m not a crier, but if I was, that certainly would have gotten me.
So I’m thinking a lot about this, and this family that I know comes to mind. And I know immediately that I’ve got to talk to the mom. Several years ago, the youngest child decided to just move out over spring break of their senior year. And it dealt a crippling blow to the family. This child and their siblings had always been close, and now they were being shut out. And their mom hadn’t been the same since. But I felt a longing to share the story of the prodigal son. And remind her that even though this hurt has been in her life for a few years now could be healed with the unwavering love of God, and to let her know not to get discouraged. Her other children don’t understand why she still hopes for her youngest to “come back home”, but I do. She is waiting day by day, so that she can see her child from a long way off and run and kiss them. She is waiting, thinking, “Maybe today is the day she chooses to love me back.”
I promise, I’m almost done. But I’ve got to bring it back to Train. That wasn’t just in there for fun.
I’m riding home, and listening to the song “Marry Me” on that cd, and the chorus comes on, and I stopped thinking about it as a song about a creeper who stares at a lady in a coffee shop, and thought. “That’s what Jesus wants.” The first part of the chorus says:
Marry me, today and every day…
God says, “Maybe today is the day they choose to love me back”, and He sends His son Jesus to say “Marry ME! Today and every day!” That is the invitation that Christ gives to us. That is why the church (believers) is called the Bride of Christ. He wants us to pick Him, choose Him, MARRY HIM! Today. And tomorrow. And next week. And next year. And from now and until forever. Today and every day.
It’s not an easy decision to make though. That marriage requires us to give up a lot of ourself, and be will to not get back much in return in this life. It calls us to love everyone. It calls us to give up the darkest parts of ourselves that our sin loves the most. But it is a marriage that is unlike anything any of us will ever experience other than that. It is a marriage that is worth the blood, sweat, and tears that have already gone into, and will continue to go into it until the day He decides to bring His Bride home and carry her over the threshold into eternal life with Him.
Lot’s of love,
Stippick
