The message I never expected...but should have

A story of hope...

If you’ve walked with Jesus for any length of time, you probably have a name, or maybe a few…

A person you’ve prayed for, for years, who somehow seems further from God now than when you started.

Maybe it’s your adult child, who knows the truth but is choosing to chase anything but Jesus...

Or a spouse who once walked WITH you towards a deeper intimacy with Christ, but no longer is…

Or a friend, sibling, or parent…

Or maybe it’s someone who never professed to have any kind of faith, but KNOWS the truth because they have been around it their whole life, yet wants nothing to do with God.

Watching people I love seem to walk AWAY from Jesus instead of toward Him is heartbreaking in ways that are hard to put into words.

It can start to feel hopeless…

But with GOD, it is NEVER hopeless.

In the middle of a particularly hard season, I got an unexpected message.

It was from a friend who had been a HUGE part of the reason I know Jesus at all.

Her, and her whole family were such an important part of my story. They loved me at a time when my life was nothing but chaos and darkness.

They took me in and treated me like family.

She shared the gospel with me (sort of), and I started going to church with her and her sister.

Which is why it had been such a specific kind of grief that, for more than twenty years, she had said she didn’t really believe any of it anymore.

It was something that would pop into my mind at the most random of times. I would stop and pray when it did, but not as often as I should have.

It was a little bit of that out of sight, out of mind thing…

Then, one random weekend she messaged me that she had gotten saved and wanted to talk.

I was literally SHOCKED.

Only God could have known how IMPORTANT that timing was for me.

We talked for hours.

She told me the whole story. The hard, the broken, and the beautiful way God was always present even when she was running the opposite way and what it’s been like since…

And I’ll be honest with you - I did not have the faith to expect that call.

I was SURPRISED. Like honestly surprised.

But I shouldn’t have been.

We shouldn’t be surprised when God pursues His people relentlessly.

I shouldn’t be surprised when all of a sudden the truths someone has known for years take root, and radically transform their hearts in a way that can only be explained by the Holy Spirit.

I should never be surprised that God goes after the one.

Unlike me…

He does not stop when things get inconvenient.

Or when enough time has passed that giving up seems reasonable.

He does not stop until that ONE sheep is back with the others, safe in His care.

And for that one sheep… there is no condemnation, there is a loving, urgent welcome home… like the prodigal son being embraced by his father.

I believe those stories when I read them, but I can often lose my expectancy in real life.

It’s hard to believe those things on a random Tuesday, years into praying for someone who seemingly hasn’t budged.

Because if I’m being honest…

As someone who is a person that likes to take quick action, and believes in the power of hard work, praying for years on end without seeing a result can feel pointless.

I cognitively know that it’s NOT… but I’m finite, and struggle with God’s timing sometimes.

I would do things differently, and sometimes those thoughts creep in…

Maybe this is a waste of time…

Maybe I’m crazy to think this will do anything…

Then, 20 years later, you get a text that reminds you that God’s love FAR supersedes ours…

And that He has a plan, He is ALWAYS at work, and He is working ALL things together for good.

He is not wringing His hands and pacing the floor the way we do - He is the One already running down the road.

That should transform the way we pray and it should change the way we live.

Our part is to keep telling the truth… clearly, out loud, without sanding off the parts that cost us something.

I said something similar in another article, and I’ll say it here - to skimp on the gospel to make it more palatable is the most unloving thing we can do.

Our part is ALSO to live in such a way that our words and our lives actually match. (The watching world is quick, and correct, to call us out when they don’t.)

We are not just called to “go love people” as though love and the gospel are the same sentence. They are not.

We are compelled to love, and to live in holiness, and to give and serve and share… because of what Christ has already done for us.

The love of Christ is what compels us.

Not guilt.

Not performance.

Just the overflow of a finished work, knowing that our sin was so great, so deep that it earned us an eternity fully separated from God, but HIS love was so great, He gave His only son to pay for that sin, so that we might be restored to an intimate relationship with God, as His children…here and for all eternity.

We don’t will ourselves to live like Jesus, the Holy Spirit indwells us, and as we pursue a deeper relationship with Him, through His word, through worship, through obedience…

He shapes us and forms us.

We become salt and light in a dark world.

And that Spirit compels us to pray, knowing…

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. - James 5:16

For reasons I will never fully understand on this side of glory, God has chosen to move through the prayers of His people.

Even the prayers that feel like they’re going nowhere. Even during years of total silence.

Those are not wasted years. He is using every single one of them.

Do not mistake His silence for His absence.

Keep telling the truth.

Keep pursuing God through His word.

Keep walking in obedience.

Listen when the Holy Spirit prompts you to pray.

And pray with the kind of expectant, almost embarrassing hope that belongs to people who really do believe He goes after the one.

So, my friend… keep praying for that name…

And watch what God does.

It might take a long time. It might look nothing like you expected.

But He has not stopped going after them, in the same way He didn’t stop going after you.