When I was a young boy, I had a cassette tapes (that's right, a cassette tapes) of Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. I used these tapes to escape into a world of imagination as I would close myself off from the world by hiding in the closet in the room my brother Marcos and I used to share at the apartment my mother rented in Houston after my parents had divorced. I listened over and over to the orchestration, the characterization of the instruments and the intent of the composer to fully immerse the listener into the world they created. You see, as a young boy, The Nutcracker was never a ballet to me. I never had the privilege to see it performed. All I had were the titles to the songs on the cassette tapes to tell me the story. These compositions had always been a music that painted the picture within my mind of the story. Later in life I came across Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème, a story who's raw depiction of scenes of real life was paired with such beautiful music it was truly a magnificent thing for me to experience. I wanted that story, as tragic as it was. I wanted that beauty and truth of life to be my life...
Ever since these early experiences with music and imagination, for years I found myself daydreaming constantly, romanticizing existence into something that which seemed to be only achievable through imagination. This eventually lead to much disillusion in my life which caused me to make many poor choices as I searched constantly for this irrational ideal.
The truth is... the romanticized illusion I was searching for... the illusion I wanted to manifest into my life... did not, and could not, exist. But I found something much greater than all of that. After years of searching and digging... and wrestling... and fighting. I finally began to see the story of my own life. I finally began to draw meaning to the experiences I have had through all my years of existence, and above all of that I began to see God was with me the entire time. Through the heartache, through the poor choices, through the rebellion, through the loss, through the loneliness... the one thing that remained constant was God's presence in my life.
The writer of Hebrews concisely phrases this in Chapter 13 verse 5 where he states plainly a truth that has been with God's people through Moses (Deut. 31:6) and Joshua (Josh. 1:5), "I will never leave you, nor forsake you". God has always been with me, just as God has always been with all of us. We have the choice. We can turn our backs on God, we can rebel and we can choose to live our lives in a manner that is contrary to the best He has planned for us. But the fact is... God cannot and will not turn His back on us, He has promised this.
Jesus spoke of this in a parable, the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). After receiving his inheritance, the prodigal son squandered every last penny through living recklessly. He began to go hungry and longed to even eat what the pigs he was feeding ate. He decided that even being a servant at his father's house was better than this life, so he purposed in his heart to return to his father and began to head home. in verse 20 we find one of the most significant phrases in this parable "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him." See, the father was looking for his son, scanning the horizon to see if his son would return from his reckless living and squandered inheritance. And the moment he saw him returning, he RAN to him. He didn't sit at the porch of the house with his arms folded, tapping his foot ready to scold him. He RAN to him, embraced him and kissed him.
It's easy to be rebellious, to do things your own way, this is the pride we desperately cling to... humility, repentance and obedience? these are difficult to conform to and admit.Our own way leads to poor choices, greed and desires that only involve ourselves and our selfish ambitions. God's way calls us to address our need of Him and repent from our prideful ways, that we might become fellow heirs with Christ into everlasting life through salvation and walk in a manner that will lead us to learn His perfect will in our lives (Acts 3:19, Rom. 10:9, Rom. 8:17, Rom. 12:2).
When you make that choice? God will RUN to you embrace you, kiss you and welcome you home.
