Coming to our Senses

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!" Luke 15:17

It is Christmas morning and your kids open their gifts. The living room is filled with remote control cars, computer games, doll houses, and various electronic gifts. Then those dreaded words appear to the parent; "Some assembly required." But, as is so often the case, what do we see? The directions are ignored or discarded altogether and an attempt is made to assemble the gift without using the instructions. Then there is the family on a road trip. Most people today have navigation systems either on their smartphones or installed in their vehicles. Again, what do we see? The navigation system is not used because the driver is confident in their ability to arrive at the destination without any assistance. What has often been the result in both these scenarios? In the case of assembling the gift, hours go by and the gift is not put together. Or it is "assembled," but there are numerous unused parts lying all over the floor. The family on the road trip find themselves lost and the driver, in their pride, will not admit they are lost and refuses to ask for help. Ultimately, both the person assembling the gift and the driver is forced to admit they do not know what they are doing or where they are going. The instruction manual, that has been sitting nearby all day, is finally thumbed through in an effort to salvage the assembly process so the child can finally enjoy their gift. The driver either plugs the coordinates into the navigation system to try and find their location and make the adjustments to get back on track or, to speed things up, they ask someone familiar with the area for directions. How much time, effort and suffering could have been avoided if each person would have just followed the directions? Even as Christians, and I am just as guilty as the next person, we wait until we have exhausted all of our knowledge and resources trying to address a problem or circumstance before we seek God's guidance. Sometimes, especially if we figure out a solution to our problem, we never seek God's guidance at all. Granted, we don't necessarily need God's assistance in figuring out things like what to eat for breakfast. God has given us a mind to use and the freedom to make our own choices. But, there is nothing wrong with asking Him either. Imagine your surprise if God said, "Let's have pancakes today." There is a tendency to believe that God, despite our believing that we have a "personal relationship" with Him through faith in Jesus Christ, is only concerned with the big things in life; none of which seem to include us. We think that He is off concerning Himself with some global, universal or eternal event. And you know what? He probably is. But, remember, the same God that spoke the universe into existence is the same God that came to His creation as a baby boy. The little things matter.

We can easily think that God only speaks to the "important" people in life and does so in spectacular ways. After all, we see God speak to Moses through a burning bush, blind Paul in an incredible display of His glory on the road to Damascus and come to Peter in a vision to reveal His plan for the Gentiles. Therefore, when it comes to our own lives we can feel as if He is not concerned with us or that He is only going to come to our aid as a last resort. So, we make the majority of our decisions without including Him. Are we actually taking the time to have a direct conversation with Him through either scripture study, prayer, just calling out to Him or all of the above before we exhaust our own personal resources and have to come to Him in desperation? There are many applications for the story of the prodigal son. It is a story of redemption. It is a story illustrating a lost person coming to faith in Jesus Christ. It is a story showing God uniting the Jew and Gentile into one. I am sure there are other applications as well. However, in the middle of the story, we see one thing that can apply to this particular conversation about our life in Christ. At the beginning of Luke 15:17 we read, "When he came to his senses ..." The prodigal son took his inheritance, wasted it, suffered for it and when he came to his senses, returned home to his father. We have been given an inheritance as a result of our faith in Jesus Christ. We have God living in us through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Because of this, we have also been given the mind of Christ. In every personal relationship a person has, when a decision has to be made, they go their significant other and, together, make a plan of action. Why would it be any different with the King of the Universe? Christians have something nobody else has, although it is available to everybody; God!!! He should always be the one we go to initially to seek guidance from on any and every decision we make; whether it be breakfast or something life-changing. He is more than the instruction manual. He is the Author of it! He is more than our navigation system. He created the roads we drive on! Jesus told us that we would have trouble in this world. He told us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Suffering is a part of this world and often times it is unavoidable regardless of what we do. However, we may be able to avoid some of it or mitigate the damage it does to our lives and live above those circumstances if we would just consult the Lord first in our decision-making process instead of having to come to our senses after we have made a mess of things. Thankfully, regardless of the decisions we make, our God is there waiting for us with compassion like the father of the prodigal son.