A few months ago I learned that our neighbor’s cat decided she wanted to leave home and enjoy life in the outdoor world. She found a hole that a woodchuck had dug under the building in my backyard and made that her new home. Efforts to get her back to her owners failed. I often saw her, but could see she was getting thinner and thinner as the time went by; and then she seemed to be nowhere in sight for a few weeks.
While working in my yard one day my neighbor came over and told me, “We got our kitty back!” She had been hurt badly by some predator, a gaping hole and infection in her side and extremely thin. He went on to tell me while they had their garage door open one day they heard a “meow,” outside their kitchen door. Opening it, the kitty struggled inside. She needed help and she knew it, but she also knew where to go to get help–back home!
Have you ever “wandered from home, looking for excitement, for something new, something better? Things may go well for a season, but in time the excitement ceases, nothing is really new or better and you know it. You find yourself alone, hurting perhaps physically as well as spiritually. But there’s something within you that tells you what to do–RUN HOME! That’s the Holy Spirit and He says, “There is One who has never stopped loving you, One who has never stopped caring for you, One who is always waiting for you with arms wide open to welcome you home.”
Just like the kitty, just like the “prodigal son,” (Luke 15:11-32) who knew where to go when things went badly, you need to remember that our God and Savior waits lovingly to receive you, to forgive you, to shower you with blessings once again. RUN HOME!