Tag: Returning

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How to return home.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Praise the Lord! I will thank the Lord with all my heart as I meet with his godly people. How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in him should ponder them. Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails. He causes us to remember his wonderful works. How gracious and merciful is our Lord! Psalms‬ ‭111‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Psalm 111 is a tribute, written by Ezra the high priest and scribe, AFTER returning from 70 years of captivity in Babylon. To be clear, everyone knew why Israel was taken into slavery. The citizens had not only walked away from God, disregarding His laws and warnings, they had given themselves wholly to other gods, foreign gods – FAKE gods! God’s prophets, His spokespersons had been warning both the leaders of Israel and the prominent families to turn their hearts back to God. Israel consistently chose to do their own thing. Now, after 70 years, their city, their temple was decimated. Their kings, dead. Their brothers and sisters in the ten tribes that had split off from the whole, lost forever. The only ones to return were the remnants, the “root of Jesse,” as they were called.

Yet, in all this loss and penitence. In their humility, they found their heart for God. In mass they repented and made the journey back to rebuild what had been destroyed. Even though their hope was a flickering flame, a smoldering wick, just barely showing light, they remembered their God. Ezra writes, “He causes us to remember his wonderful works.” In complete misery of loss they remembered God and their own hearts turned, once again, towards Him!

How does one come back from devastation? How does one return to rebuild their entire life? How does one find hope in their future? Israel recognized their sin and remembered their God! Captivity wasn’t God’s fault, it was His love and discipline, going to extremes to keep His people from complete and utter destruction. The human heart, left to its own desires, will crash and burn and destroy everyone and everything around them. We are desperately wicked and strive against God to have our own way and do our own thing. God intervened, putting the nation in timeout until they came to their senses.

Psalm 111 captures the results of them turning their hearts towards God as they make their final assent back up to the city of Jerusalem. Ezra, returning and reflecting on the years of loss, looked up the road to Jerusalem. Then his eyes continued to look up, high into the heavens and thank God. What do you do to return? You look back and see your own decisions that led to devastation. You look up the road to see the restoration of your own future. And, you look even higher, to see God and thank Him for His righteousness, grace and mercy. This is the lesson of Psalm 111. Don’t quit. Don’t wallow. Don’t wait! Come home.

Prayer

​Dad,
What awaits us when we return home? Is it judgment, shame and humiliation? No! What awaits us is exactly what awaited Ezra and Your people – righteousness, grace and mercy. You want us to win. You want us to be well. You want us to live! Thank you oh Lord, for the means of mercy to see our failures and poor decisions. Thank you for the gift of seeing our past with the ability to turn to you and see our future. Thank you for real and genuine hope in the plans you have for us, if we would just turn and return. Amen.

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Feeling the presence of God.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Turn us again to yourself, O God of Heaven’s Armies. Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved. You brought us from Egypt like a grapevine; you drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land. You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land. Our shade covered the mountains; our branches covered the mighty cedars. We spread our branches west to the Mediterranean Sea; our shoots spread east to the Euphrates River. But now, why have you broken down our walls so that all who pass by may steal our fruit? The wild boar from the forest devours it, and the wild animals feed on it. ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭80‬:‭7‬-‭13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

This idea of God raising up a grapevine, nurturing it, watching over it and giving it a place to thrive and flourish is a popular theme in the Bible. I just wrote about Isaiah (chapter 5) giving an object lesson about the vine and the vineyard. The Psalmist writes about it while Israel is in Babylonian captivity. It goes along with another familiar phrase, “the root of Jesse,” which expresses the promise of a messianic king who would be born of David’s family. God is responsible to keep and protect this root of His vine!

Jesus even refers to Himself being the vine root and speaks of the fruit of that vine in John 15. And, Paul picks up the theme in Romans 15. Then finally, Jesus refers to himself as the root of Jesse in Revelation 22. This overarching picture of God following through with his promise even though Israel (and us as well) have consistently been unfaithful and failing to keep our promises in obedience to God’s Word. God is faithful to fulfill His promise and from that “root” He will raise up a whole new generation of children. These are the children of promise through the faithfulness, not of themselves, but of Christ alone.

In the verses following in this Psalm we hear the desperate plea for God not to give up on His people. “Come back, we beg you, O God of Heaven’s Armies. Look down from heaven and see our plight. Take care of this grapevine that you yourself have planted, this son you have raised for yourself.” (vs 14-15). I get the feeling that people generally know when they are close to the Lord or far off from Him. I know for me, when I have wandered or just been careless with my love and attentiveness to His presence, I definitely knew it. I felt similar to the Psalmist. I wanted to be close again and hear God’s voice, feel the Holy Spirit working in my life. I would never want to get used to being far from Him. I would never want to be so far from God that I no longer felt His face shining down on me. Jesus is the vine; we are the branches. Those who remain in him, and he in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Jesus we can do nothing (John 15:5).

Prayer

Dad,
I clearly see that you have done everything to keep us (keep me) close to you. You faithfully and consistently come after us, wooing us, forgiving us and loving us. My part is to stay close to you, connected to you. The most difficult part is not even my sin, which separates me from your presence. It’s the shame and embarrassment of continuing to return, constantly coming back in confession and repentance. It’s trusting that you forgive me and receive me once again. It’s the not giving up, not drifting too far – that’s the hard part. Your word promises that you are faithful and JUST to forgive me and clean me when I come to you. I never want to be without your presence. I never want heaven to be silent because of my unfaithfulness to you! Amen.