Monday Morning Prayer: You couldn’t run far enough

A Thought Have you ever seen a toddler outrun a parent? Well, I have, and that scene is both entertaining and sobering because you recognize the fact that the toddler really thinks he can run Dad, but you also recognize that soon enough, that baby has to go back home.

When it comes to life, you and I are that toddler, and God is Dad. We could not run far enough away from God before he finds us. No matter how far off the deep end of sin you have gone, no matter how great the pain you have endured, there isn't a place you could go that is far enough away that God cannot find you. He will always find you, and he will always bring you back, but here's the thing God chooses us, and then he gives us the option to choose him back.

I always wonder why God never forces me to follow him and then I recognize the reality that to follow God is not a dictatorship; it's an invitation to choose, or not. God's hand is always open to you and me, his arms are always open, he is sitting on the porch waiting for his son to come home. Will you go home? A Scripture

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?  Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?  Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself.  Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 8:31-39 (NLT)

A prayer

Lord, lead me back to you. In Jesus’ name. Amen

See you next week, Monday…

Until then be KIND

By Li Lin