Hope for a Wandering Heart

Devotional

Nobody wanders off on purpose.

That's the thing about drifting. It doesn't feel like rebellion. It feels like busyness. You missed a few Sundays because of travel. The Bible on the nightstand got a layer of dust. Prayer became the thing you did when something went wrong. And then one day you look up and you don't know where you are. You're not angry at God. You just haven't talked to him in a long time, and you're a little embarrassed to start.

Psalm 119:176 is the last verse of the longest psalm in the Bible. A hundred and seventy-five verses about loving God's Word. And then the writer ends like this. "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant." Even that guy. Even the one who wrote the love song to Scripture. He wanders. And notice what he asks for. Not "help me find my way back." He says, seek me. He knows a lost sheep doesn't navigate home. A lost sheep gets found.

And then Jesus tells a story about exactly that.

Luke 15. A son takes his inheritance early, which in that culture was like saying "I wish you were dead." He blows it. He ends up feeding pigs, a Jewish boy, in the mud, hungry enough to want what the pigs are eating. And he writes himself a speech. Father, I've sinned. I'm not worthy. Make me a hired hand. He's got it all worked out. The terms of his return. The demotion he'll accept.

But read verse 20 slowly. "While he was still a long way off, his father saw him." Which means the father was looking. Every day, at the end of the road. "And felt compassion, and ran." Middle Eastern fathers didn't run. It was undignified. You'd have to hike up your robe. He didn't care. He ran. And the son starts his speech, gets three lines in, and the father talks right over him. Robe. Ring. Shoes. Kill the calf. "This my son was dead, and is alive again."

The son never got to the part about being a hired hand. The father wouldn't let him.

Here's what you need to see. Grace doesn't meet you halfway. It runs the whole road. And the reason it can is that Jesus went farther from the Father than you ever have. On the cross he was the one "a long way off." He was forsaken so the door would stay open. The Father ran toward you because the Son was crushed for you.

Peter closes it. "You were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." Overseer. The one whose job is to watch. You drifted, and he never stopped watching.

So here's what to do today. Don't write a speech. Don't work out the terms. Don't wait until you've read your Bible for a week straight and feel like you've earned it. Just turn around. Say the shortest prayer there is. I've gone astray. Seek your servant.

He's already running.