Because I had great memories of that body & that building.
Because deep down,for more years than a mature Christian probably should, I was hurt & upset with God for taking it away.
Because I think in that same deep down spot I had hoped He would restore it.
But now there is no going back.
Not that we ever were, but I clung ever so loosely to the possibility we might, if we chose to.
The choice is no longer ours.
Really never was.
The only choice I made was to make an idol out of what was and strain my neck to keep looking back at it. I see that now. I've seen it for a while, but today brought it clearly into focus.
The thing about idols - there is no life in them. I was looking into a man made building for a church body that had died years ago. That's not to say the church there now isn't growing or alive. It is to say the one I had exalted in my thinking was dead & gone.
And I don't know why. Believe me, I've asked the Lord in my most insolent of child like voices, in the most tearful of fits. I've looked like a 2 year old before Him.
He has chosen not to answer.
Doesn't change who He is.
A loving Father who will correct His temper tantrum throwing daughter.
A loving Father who endures as she matures.
A loving Father who knew her wounds before she mumbled a word or cried a tear.
A loving Father Who desires to do a new thing in her heart and in her life; who desires to prune back the tangled vines of her questions and hurts so new fruit may burst forth; who knows in that pruning she will be drawn back to the one true Vine & no longer be wrapped around the things out there.
A loving Father who waits for His prodigal daughter to return and make the choice to have ears to hear & eyes to see the beauty of the place He has her, for He is there.
Today, I choose.
Today, so can you.
He has chosen us.
He chooses us.
