Me:  Where are you going Prodigal?

 

Prodigal:  I am about to go to Smithfields for some food.   Would you like to join me?  I could use the company.

 

Me:  Sure, as we eat I would like to share from a book that I have enjoyed reading.

 

Tim Chester writes in his book You Can Change

 

External activities can’t change us, says, Jesus, because sin comes from within, from our hearts.  Our rituals might change our behavior for a while, but they can’t change our hearts.  And so they can’t bring true and lasting holiness.  We need heart change.

 

God always, always looks at our hearts.  This is what is upsetting to some Christians and comforting to other Christians.  When God puts us through trials sometimes we can be confused because it doesn’t make since.  We form in our mind a perfect way of how things should be answered.  We are then shocked as we pray and seek the Lord that things seem to be going in an opposite direction.  Usually as time passes and God reveals truth to us we see that we were thinking of the external ways that belong to part of the trial.  God was looking at how to keep our hearts focused on Him and to bring about this as the most important aspect of our trial.  We are not perfect as we go through trials but even then God looks at us with compassion and grace to keep carrying us through it all.

 

Isaiah 29:18

In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

 

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org