8-9-2019

Good Morning All,

     Genesis 3:8: “In the cool of the evening, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking around in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden.”

    Many youngsters, at one time or another, think of running away.  When they are younger, it is to run away from punishment.  When they get a little older, it may be to resolve issues with parents or school.  Maybe they think that the rules are too strict or that they are deserving of more trust and freedom.  As they get older, it can be more and more serious.  It can be the stress of classes.  It can be the stresses of friendships or lack of friends.  It might be the strain between friends who have and friends who are.

    Running away is often our answer in life.  Sometimes it is our answer to life.  We think we get away from the problems.  Somehow, the problems won’t find us; the problems will just disappear.  Yet, as the old saying goes, you can run but you cannot hide.

    Adam and Eve tried to run.  They tried to run from God and to hide their sin.  When God “found” them; they tried to run from the responsibility of what they had done. The really sad thing is that by running away from God, they were running away from their only hope.

    When a child is little and runs away, a parent has two choices; to wait them out or to go looking for them.  As children get older, we usually have to go looking for them.  As parents, we never stop loving them; we never give up.  There may be times when our children do things which we can almost not bear but we still love them.  We may not approve of what they said or did but we still love them.  A child can never truly run away from the love of a parent.  The child may think so but the parent never does.  The parent will always be looking for the child trying to get them back.  Parents never really give up on their children.  The love of the parent endures.

    God is our heavenly father; he will never stop looking for you.  He will never stop loving you.  God’s love endures all things.  He wants to keep us in the family and he wants us to be happy.  It is kind of strange that we often spend all of our time complicating the Bible.  It is really simple.  God wants to deliver us from evil; to save us from the wretched power of the devil.  He wants us to live as a community of people who serve him and love him.  He wants us to be a community of people who communicate with him and he wants us to have the good life.  All this, out of fatherly divine goodness and mercy; all this out of love, God loves us.  Instead of running away; run to him.  God desires our love and our faithfulness.  He desires this more than our obedience.  God’s love endures and he wants ours in return.

Father of love, we glorify your name for all the blessings which you give to us.  We are especially thankful for the gift of redemption for the gift of your love.  Move us to share this love with those around us and to bring all the runners home.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret