The Great Moment of
our "turn around" is never at the spot when everything changes but at
the point at which we decide for God.
When a paralytic was carried to the home where Jesus was teaching, the
turn around was not when the man arrived.
It wasn't when Jesus bent over the cripple and told him to walk. It wasn't even those rapid fire nanoseconds
when healing flashed through the paralytic's legs. The turn around was when it was decided to go
to the Lord for help. Repentance is a
turn around. The cry to God for help is
a turn around. The lostness that is
discovered in the heart is a turn around.
As we come to grips with the
realization that every hope we have must end with God and if the truth
be known, starts with Him, we meet the turn around at our doorstep. Faith is the turn around; it is the spot at
which we go outside ourselves and the miserly universe and seek the treasure
trove of God's grace. This world is
never enough and will never provide us with enough. We are always left with an empty pang in our
stomach when all we do is rely upon this world for what we long to have. It is more than metaphoric that the prodigal
realized where he should have lived all along when his stomach growled
uncontrollably. We seek the Father not
to get something in the end but because He is the beginning and the end. All joy and peace and love and contentment
are found ultimately in Him and although we may mistake some carnal longing for
its heavenly desire, even in our most lustful cravings, we have in them the
opportunity to fill our stomach with the bread Jesus offered the crowd on the
hillside. His broken body and poured
out blood come to us at the moment of our hunger pangs and if we are wise, we
will feast on them. Given the voracity
of our appetite, the only way we can ever be filled is by turning to Christ and
letting Him fully satisfy us. When you
decide to go after the Savior, He saves you beyond the saving you sought.
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise
him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5-6a NIV
