Recently I had the privilege of praying with a Pastor who was pouring out their heart because one of their children had drifted away from God. The other child was walking with God and was living at home. The words that have stayed with me about the prodigal child are these, “She is not in our home she lives nearby.”
How many are not home with God? Maybe living nearby but not home with Him.
Such is the generation that God was trying to restore and bring home.
“Ephraim is oppressed, trampled in judgment, intent on pursuing idols. I am like a moth to Ephraim, like rot to the people of Judah. “When Ephraim saw his sickness,
and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. Then I will return to my lair until they have borne their guilt and seek my face—in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” (Hosea 5 v 11-15)
This generation were ‘intent’ on walking away from total devotion to God. They even had the audacity to look to others for help, to the ‘great king’ of Assyria and not the King of all. They had stopped seeking God.
Sound familiar?
What lengths will God go to bring us home?
- He will lift off the beauty/His glory from our life like the moth impacting not only the clothes we wear but a setting in of a decaying rot that weakens our lives and structures. I thought of how the RAAC concrete was perhaps a prophetic word to our nation impacting not schools, hospitals, government buildings and churches, we are crumbling and need God!
- He will allow sickness and sores to come upon us and we will lose our abilities, our strength and our wealth. We will move into debt in order to be free. Ephraim did turn to Assyria with an alliance that brought more exploitation to God’s people.
- He will not only lift off and allow but He will actually move in judgment. The lion and the great lion suggest that God’s power is so much greater than that of Assyria who would not save them. If you have ever seen a lion with its prey you know destructive it is. “I will tear them to pieces” sounds unfair but it is what a lion does and it is the lengths God will go to preserve His people ultimately. For unlike the nature programmes our God will not consume but will ‘return to my lair’ so that His people can recover and choose their relationship with Him again.
If all that sounds heavy then it is meant to be. Being a prodigal is costly and the parent I prayed with was seeing this for themselves. What will it take to bring them home? The moth to the lion and everything in between. Perhaps. This is why we should stand shoulder to shoulder with the families who have the prodigals and not only support them but pray with them for those who used to follow Him to return.
Missions Paul 