Looking for Elsewhere

 Elsewhere is a place for hearts that can never find a belonging. They are always wandering, looking for somewhere that will give them a sense of security. But they will never find it, because what they are really looking for is not out there. 

Driven with this restlessness, a son leaves home. He demanded his share of his father’s inheritance that was coming to him when his father died. Taking his share of his father’s wealth, the son ventures out for elsewhere. 

“And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.” (‭Luke‬ ‭15‬:‭13‬ NKJV)

Relocated, the son enjoys some wild living, he exhausts everything he has on things he didn’t need, on people who didn’t like him, on places he shouldn’t be, with aspirations he will never find in any of them. 

See the thing is, belonging is never where you are. Geography doesn’t give meaning to anyone. It’s not where you are that fulfills you, it’s who you’re with. 

So happens after the son has wasted all his money, that a famine swept in, and he began to starve. He looked for elsewhere to meet his need but he only met rejection. 

Desperation persuaded him to feed pigs which was the epitome of desperation in this ancient culture. He was so hungry that he even craved the slop of the pigs, but not even that would anyone give him.

Sometimes you need to lose what you have to appreciate the value of it. 

“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” (‭Luke‬ ‭15‬:‭17‬ NKJV)

The son came to his senses and realized his problem was that he was discontented. Everything he needed was at home. 

Somewhere to belong is an ache many of us struggle with. It cries from inside us and we feel it needs to be answered. But it’s lie. It’s just a shade of being discontented with what has become too normal to cope with. It’s an insecurity that my present circumstances will not give me fulfillment. Relocation is a bad thing if it serves a means to escape a feeling of discontentment. 

Feeling that he didn’t deserve the right to be part of the family anymore, he decides to ask his father to take him as a slave. 

“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” (‭Luke‬ ‭15‬:‭20‬ NKJV)

While he contemplated, his father caught sight of him and with his heart pounding, he ran to his son. He lost nights of rest, he spent days with his eyes over the horizon, looking for his child to come home. 

In his culture, it was improper and bad for old men to run, but this father didn’t care. He wasn’t a whole since his son left. He lost a part of himself that if it return, he was not going to let anything keep him from getting it back. 

He ran on air until the father broke his son’s standing, throwing him into his chest. His son muffled his speech inside his father, but his father wasn’t listening. 

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.” Luke‬ ‭15‬:‭22-24‬ NKJV)

The son returned home finding all that he recklessly looked for was right under his nose. The son like many of us was ungrateful. He imagined love, acceptance and joy would be among a different group of warm bodies. But true love was right around him, waiting for him and merry when he got home. 

Sometimes, to have what you want, you have to want what you have. 

Elsewhere is somewhere that takes you anywhere because it’s nowhere. 

Where you need to be and where you actually want to be is around those you do love you. Being human sometimes causes us to disregard that. But where you belong sometimes is who you are with. 

Be grateful. 

Still long way off for some of you, there is a God Who’s heart is pounding, waiting for you to come to Him (or even come back to Him). He is anxious for to hear your voice, to feel your presence, to know you are His. There is no distance to His love for long ago He said: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” (‭Jeremiah‬ ‭31‬:‭3‬ NKJV). He won’t relent until He has you. He will wait until the sun sits under the sky and when it rises again for you to find Him. 

Let God love you. 

God’s Pleasure: He Wants You

  We aspire to answer the question: am I wanted? Too often our heart strings are racing to be  entangled with whatever hope of someone possibly loving us. We relish at any attention we’re given, either negative or postive, because we are captivated by the thought that someone desires us. 

The long fall back to earth happens at the reality we attained less of our sense of self worth. Wounds cut deep to realize someone we assume cared about us only acted in such a way for their own selfish gain. 

Trust is hard earned today. Honestly, why should we blame anyone for keeping such a guard? We can’t see sincerity in face value as much anymore.

But as cliché as it sounds: God wants us…for us

“Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:5, 6 NKJV)

God determined beforehand by Jesus Christ to adopt you. He decided that when at your coming to Him to be saved from all wrong that would destroy you, He was going to bring you into His family. And he did for the praise of the glory: He did it because He was pleased to do it. 

Being belonged to God is something that makes Him happy! 

How unfathomable is that? It’s inconceivable enough that God would want to save us in the first place.

It was justice for the terrorist Osama Bin Laden to die, because of he was responsible for the death of countless thousands that are still piling today. What scares me is that God sees it justice by sending everyone to Hell. 

God commanded: The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. (Ezekiel 18:20 NKJV)

That means that the person who sins will die. Sin is whenever you displease God. You displease God when you lie and you displease God for not thanking Him for life. Both are sin. It feels harsh but God made man to make Him happy. Not vice versa. 

He will be individually responsible for his wickedness against God and be punished. Romans 3:10 declares that there is none good. We have all missed the mark. 

The justice of a righteous God demands punishment for every crime against His precepts. The sentence God placed for our disobedience to His precepts is death.

At the shooting of Osama Bin Laden, could we imagine someone taking the bullet for him. No! We all wanted to see him die. He deserved to lose his life for taking so many others’ lives away. 

God is not a man. He looks at wrong differently from us. He doesn’t measure wrong. He sees a toddler throwing the pacifier across the room as bad as a terrorist planning to drive two planes into two skyscrapers to kill people. I lost an uncle at 9/11. He sees every wrong inexcusable and worthy of punishment.  

All that is within me cried for the head of Bin Laden, but at the same place when I first disobeyed God, all heaven cried for my death.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), (Ephesians 2:4, 5 NKJV)

God loved us so much that while we were dead because of our wrong, He gave us life through Christ. God wanted us. And how much: But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NKJV)

Its overwhelming to imagine all that it took for God to bring us to state of being clear of wrong. Christ became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). Every nasty thing, every secret fault, every evil deed, every selfish motive- Christ became that so you could literally have a clean slate.

I have cried at this fact of Christ dying to save me from death because of my sin and to give me a right standing with God. What also causes my eyes to become teary is to see that God didn’t just saved me from sin but He also adopted me. He made me a part of His family.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: (John 1:12 NKJV)

All who believe Christ, God decided to give them the right to be His children! We are born into this family not by human passions or plans that can later be regretted by a parent who has lost concern for his offspring. 

We are born into God’s family by God’s choice. This is what God wanted to do. According Ephesians 1:6 (see top), it gave Him great pleasure to do it.

Just allow your mind to entangle itself around the idea that God loved you at your worst and saved you with His best (the cost of Your Son) and then poured out His love on you by making you a part of His family. I leave you with a story that has impressed me gravely to understand God’s extravagant love.

Indeed if anyone has reason for justice it was Adele. At a genocide in Rwanda, Adele lost her husband. She saw as attackers came and flay his body with a machete. She saw as they slit his throat. As her husband fell to the ground that was a pool of his own blood, the pastor cried out to God to forgive his attackers. These men turned on Adele. They sliced her face deeply. Everyday a mirror shows her great scar. Adele was left among dead bleeding from her face, back and her wrist at the cuts of machetes. Three years it took her to recover. For many it would take a lifetime to even to consider forgiveness. Not Adele.

“I could be a bitter, angry, resentful old woman, but I’m not going to do that.”

Adele started going to the prisoners and mothered the very men who had attack her village. One day Adele met Luis. She met him prostrated before her, kissing her feet and crying bitterly. Adele examined the trembling man and saw that Luis was the man that had killed her beloved husband and the man that marked her face. A man’s love draws its limits at such a woeful event, but Adele was filled richly with a love we saw earlier in God.

Luis asked, “Adele, would you forgive me?”

Adele bent over as the Father did from the clouds of heaven and pulled Luis up as God did from our place of unwantedness. She looked into Luis’ eyes and said, “Luis, I forgive you.”

The story could end there, but it doesn’t. Luis was released for good behavior, but he entered society unwanted. Then entered Adele. Adele found Luis and she saw these words, “Luis, you come and I will adopt you as my son.”

How much does God love you? Enough so that He made death so that it would be difficult for you to remain in wrong. Enough that He made a way for you to escape punishment by the cost of His dear Son. Enough so that He decided to make you His child when you ask for His forgiveness. And it was His great pleasure.

You are wanted.

Enjoy Your Relationships

“And he arose and came to his father.”(Luke 15:20 NKJV)

There are some relationships you just can’t let go. You are bonded to them like a link in a chain.

I’m bonded to my family. No matter how many times I number the things they’ve done to me that made me so mad at them, I can’t undo my affectionate pull to them.

I recall being nine and planning to run away from home. The plan was thwarted by the conclusion that I couldn’t find a better place to belong to. I’m pretty much set to be a Bell for life.

I want to believe that these were some of the thoughts that streamed through the Prodigal Son’s mind. “Life sucks right now. I mean even my dad’s workers are way better off than I’m eating out of a pig through. I’m going home. I know one thing about my dad and that’s He will always take me back.”

Prodigal Son did return home and found his father waiting for him.

People may not always be delightful and desirable as we want them to be, but they are some of those relationships we have that are too much of a good gift to return.

Enjoy the people closet in your life.

Finding Perfect

Maybe you have read the verse in Philippians (Phil 4:11) which Paul says that whatever state he’s in, he is content. Sounds great, but I honestly suffer from time to time to be happy where I am.

I want to finish college. I want to be living on the sea again (I once lived on a ship). I want to live at home. I want to be married. I enjoy being single. Joy seems to roll back and forth like waves in the sea on the bank.

But sometimes the life we want will disarray us from the life that we should value.

(Photo by Colton Bennett)

Jesus told the story of young man who was discontent living under the umbrella of his father. He roughly demanded his immediate share of his inheritance, uprooted his presence at home and moved into the city.

He was finally on his own. Feeling so muddled living at home, he wanted to find his own perfect place. He was tired living a life seemly like a script written for some one else.

The Bible says: “And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living”. (Luke 15:13)

He jumped at opportunity and seized the life he so wished to enjoy. He finally arrived! But his life turned for the worse, and he found himself at the pig sty, longing to fill his stomach with the pods of the pigs.

Jesus said, “he came to himself, he said, How many of my fathers hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father” (Luke 15:17-18).

The young man looked for a perfect life, but the best life he could enjoy on earth was right under his nose.

Enjoy life you have. It may be the best there is.