Gavin Jarvis
Thanksgiving anxiety is real! And from the tension of putting together a small feast, hosting multiple people, or beginning the holiday season, the biggest struggles can be tied to family and friends.
Maybe you’ve experienced a dinner filled with family tension. You might have been alone for the first time in many years. I’ve been there. Sometimes it’s in this absence of belonging that people look for God, but are stuck because they don’t know if they’ll find the same problem in the one that they absolutely need to be there when they look for him. If you go looking for God, how will he treat you?
Jesus tells three stories with an important lesson about this. They’re in the gospel of Luke, chapter 15. First, have you said about yourself “there’s no way I can go to God. He won’t accept me, I’ve done too much?” Well, that’s exactly who Jesus hangs out with (15:1)! Jesus tells his first story about a man with 100 sheep, and one gets lost. Even though the man has 99 other sheep, his concern is for the one who is lost, and his joy is for the one that is found. God is the same. He will receive you with joy.
Jesus raises the stakes in his second story, a woman who loses a tenth of her savings in her house. This is worth far more to this woman than the sheep in the last story, and she desperately searches her house for the lost money. When she finds it, the woman loudly celebrated to everyone she could find. God is the same, and not only loudly celebrates you to his angels, but made the way for you to find God through Jesus’ shocking work to die for our sins, and conquer death. He will look for you, and He loved you before you loved him.
Then a man had two sons and one of them says “you’re dead to me!” He demands his inheritance (1/3 of the dad’s property), moves out, never calls home, goes broke, and then finds the only job he can in a recession, but he’s destitute. His only choice becomes clear. Go home to the one he disowned and beg for a job, knowing he’ll never overcome his shame. A story worthy of a Thanksgiving Drama. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” The man is re-clothed, re-instated, becomes the guest of honor at a homecoming party, was lost and now is found. The father also seeks out the other brother, who is as emotionally distant as the other son was.
God is the same. He has a peculiar way of being just around the corner of those who look for him. He replaces shame with honor and raises lowered heads. If you go looking for God, how far away is he? Turn around, he’s right behind you.
Gavin Jarvis is the lead pastor at Living Stones Church.