Your Father is calling You Home...
It has been a while since I have written, a lot has been going on... The Lord is beginning to bring me into the next chapter of my life and with that He has been helping me to grow spiritually.
I have a word for all of you who are prodigals who have been reading my blog... LISTEN CAREFULLY... GOD LOVES YOU. I do not know what it is you are currently going through or what it is that has brought you to the point of becoming a prodigal. But God has directed you to this blog for a reason. You are reading these words for a reason, not by chance... He wants your attention, and I want you to know, because I have been there - that God REALLY does love you and He hasn't given up on you.
Maybe you are at the point of giving up on yourself.
Maybe all those around you have given up on you.
Maybe you are at the beginning of your prodigal time and are having a grand ol' time and think that God doesn't see what you are doing or know what you are going through.
HE DOES.
Oh yes! You cannot hide from Him.
He sees it ALL.
You are NOT fooling Him.
Listen, I am not saying this to condemn you. I am saying this because I once was where you are now, I opened up a door that I had no business opening up and with that came my prodigal journey, what I was doing was running away from reality, numbing myself because I was unhappy with my life, but here is the thing - God refused to let go of me, He refused to give up on me. He hasn't given up on you.
"What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?" (Matthew 18:12)
That is exactly what God will do (or maybe even IS doing even as you read these words for you right now. God is no respecter of persons. He does not have favorites. But HE LOVES YOU. He DIED on the cross for forgiveness of your sins. He is leaving the rest to come after you. If you are not at a point of heading back home from your prodigal time - you soon will be. Know that God is calling you home, and even if you aren't aware of it right now or haven't been told this - He has your best interest at heart, heck - He CREATED your heart, don't you think He knows even better than you just what that best is???? HE TRULY LOVES YOU.
I know it is not easy... I know that there are times when the devil is telling you that you cannot get right with God. Well, it's true, you can't. But here is the thing - you neer could! The Bible tells us:
"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." (Isaiah 64:7).
But it also says:
"Come now, let us settle the matter," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." (Isaiah 1:18).
We NEVER could be "good enough" to earn Heaven. That is WHY Jesus came. God came down in the form of Man - Jesus - and died on the cross for forgiveness of our sins. He has Risen and even as you read these words - right now is sitting on the right hand of the Father interceding on your behalf. He's got your back!
So when ol' slewfoot comes before you and accuses you - you can agree with him. YES. We CANNOT come before the Father UNLESS we are covered with the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ. BUT because of Jesus' shed blood - once we repent and turn our lives around His blood washes ALL our sins away.
I went through a prodigal time, I am not speaking as one who doesn't know what it is like, I know how hard it is to come back home. I know what it is like to "beat myself up." But the Bible says that once we confess our sins. Once we repent He FORGIVES Us. The Bible says:
"He throws our transgressions as far as the East is to the West." (Psalm 103:12).
HE LOVES YOU. He wants you to turn back to Him. To come home.
If you are going through a prodigal time - COME HOME. You were not meant to stay there forever. God gives us free will. But if you are a born-again believer I know the Holy Spirit has been kicking your butt big time. And if you were to be honest with yourself, you'd admit that it is true and that you are tired.
It's time to come home.
I want to encourage you to make that journey back home to the Father. He's waiting... He loves you, He wants you, He DIED for you. Do not listen to any other voices telling you otherwise and it doesn't matter WHAT you have done. There is NO degree of sin with the Father. Sin is Sin.
Come Home.
God CAN and will restore you. You just have to be willing. Willing to turn around and change direction. He's calling your name. I know, because He called mine.
Now if you are a prodigal who has come home (an ex-prodigal) there may be healing that the Lord has to do in your life.
LET HIM.
Maybe He will help you examine WHY you became a prodigal in the first place. It's not to excuse it, but to help you grow. Were you running away from reality? What was your reason? At some point in your return the Lord will have you privately examine what happened and why you chose what you did. This is not to condemn you but to help you grow in Him. Maybe to reveal some things about yourself that need to be exposed so that God can heal you. There may be things about yourself that you were unaware of. Things from your childhood. Doors that you opened up that should never have been opened. There may be wounds deep within you that need deep Holy Spirit cleansing and suturing up, in allowing God to do this, it can be very painful, but it is necessary in order to grow in Him.
Let God do it...Withstand the pain.
For in the long run God will use your prodigal time to help someone else who is going through what you went through, and when that happens, God will get all the glory for it which means that what the devil meant for evil God WILL use for good.
My blog came about because I allowed myself to enter in to a prodigal time in my life. It is not easy to be transparent about our mistakes but when we know that God can use our mistakes to help someone else (learn from your experience so that they in turn won't go down that same "prodigal pathway" or perhaps help someone to know that they are not alone, not the only one to face temptations or situations, He uses what we went through for His good. Throughout our walk with the Lord we are constantly growing. I believe that will be the way it is for as long as we have breath in our bodies we are growing in Him (if we allow the Holy Spirit to move in our lives). Otherwise we become like stagnant water and God has so MUCH more in mind for you. He has plans for your life. Really! Life is filled with a bunch of lessons that are meant to draw us nearer to the Father. We choose by our own free will whether or not we will stay stunted or whether or not we will grow. The choice is always up to us.
By beginning this blog seven years ago, I chose to be there for other prodigals. To encourage and let them know that they were not alone. I chose to be transparent with my walk with the Lord and in those seven years, so much has happened! I am at a point where the Lord is telling me it is time to trust Him more. Trust is not something that comes easy for me, digging deep within myself can bring up painful moments that I would rather run from and not face, but I have come to realize that in order to go forward (which is my deepest desire) in the Lord, I have to face things that cause me pain - not run from them. Not deny them. Because I know that until I face them, I can't heal from them or grow. As I grow in Christ I realize that truly:
"It is NOT by power, NOT by might but BY HIS SPIRIT." (Zechariah 4:6)
I cannot do ANYTHING of my own accord and sometimes that is difficult for me to accept because I am a planner, I am a fixer and right now in my walk, currently - God has brought me to the end of my rope. He is saying to me. "Kelly, as Moses stood before the red sea with the Israelites and Pharaoh and his men were coming towards them. There was NOTHING in the natural that they could do. They were at a point where they had to choose to trust me. And because they did - I parted the sea. Do YOU trust Me like that?" and even though everything in the natural would indicate that I SHOULD feel defeated. That I DO NOT in the natural see a way - I know I serve a Heavenly Father WHO makes a way where there IS no way. What you see in the natural is NOT what is really going on. If God gave you special vision to see the supernatural you would see the combat going around you. The Bible says:
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12).
Once again we get to choose what are we going to believe... What our eyes see or what our Father says? He wants us to trust Him. I choose to trust Him. He is not a Father that He would lie.
He desires YOUR TRUST.
TRUST HIM. DO IT. "Taste and see that the Lord is good." (Psalms 34:8).
My prayer for you dear prodigal, or ex-prodigal, is that YOU will by faith trust Him more and more. God has blessed me so much since my prodigal time. I can tell you that I have gone through a great deal of pain, but with that pain has come spiritual growth. There are regrets I have of course. I can't go back, but I can allow the Lord to bring me forward. And because I am willing He is.
Dear prodigal (or fellow ex-prodigal) there is NO greater place to be than in the center of God's will. It is sweet and fulfilling and satisfying and like nothing I can adequately describe. I pray that for you.
God is still healing me and showing me why I allowed myself to go through a prodigal time. In bits and pieces for sure, but in love not in condemnation. It is giving me a better understanding of myself. He is also showing me what the next steps are. Because this chapter in my life is closing and God is preparing a new one. You see, the prodigal did NOT remain a prodigal for the rest of his life, oh no! That is not the end of his story. He moved forward. He was warmly welcome back into his Father's house. The Bible doesn't go on to say much more about what happened to him after that, maybe because each prodigals ending is different - but once again that is where free will comes in.... I cannot tell you what plans the Father has for you - but I can tell you that for me - He is calling me to a higher level. And I intend to answer that calling and move forward. He is saying, "There is MORE." So in the upcoming weeks I shall reveal to the followers of my blog what that "more" is. Because it is time to move forward into the next phase of my life. Heed His call. I hope you will do the same...
HE LOVES YOU. COME HOME.
