BY KANEIA CRUMLIN

This is the sixteenth in a series of posts. This reflection is on Luke 15:11-24.

It feels like I’ve read this passage 100 times (by 100, I mean a dozen) since my teenage Sunday school days but never have I seen it like I do now. Two things occur to me:

1. In verse 12, the son demands, “I want my share of your estate now before you die.”
2. The lavishness with which the father receives his lost son.

I always want what God has for me now way before His timing. I’m sure. Although I know God’s timing is best. I’ve prayed that “now, please” prayer a gazillion times and will probably pray it again in the not-too-distant future.

I’ve gotten a smidge more spiritual with my “now prayers” and will oftentimes end with “not my will but yours be done.”

However, deep down inside, while I know God’s timing is best, I have a hard time believing it especially when it doesn’t seem fair, right or just. I doubt God‘s response time—his strategy. I doubt God’s goodness – His love for me or the subject of my prayer.  

Even though I intellectually know He works all things out for the good of those who love him and are called by his name, I doubt.

Essentially, when I pray my “now prayers”, what I’m saying to God is, “I don’t really trust you nor do I want to have to trust you, so just give it to me now.”

Wow. (Sigh).

It sounds beyond ridiculous when I write it out in black and white but there it is – the doubt and hubris that live in my heart when I disagree with God and take steps to act on how I feel or what I think is best.

Does this sound like someone you’ve heard of before? Someone who used to live close to God – like in heaven – who disagreed and decided to act on his own feelings and go his own way, into hell?

But thanks be to God that His response to my repeat return is faithfully– like the father‘s response to his lost son in verse nine–lavish.

I’ve never felt any degree of harshness or condemnation from the Holy Spirit: only the warmest and most joyful welcome.

It’s as if the Holy Spirit wraps all of him around all of me in an embrace that says, SO glad to have you here with me.

Like the reunion of two good good friends, I hardly notice there was a break.

“…So the party begins” (v.24, NLT) 

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KANEIA CRUMLIN lives in Washington, DC with her hubs, Chandler, and their two toddler cubs, Britton and Elle. She leads one of two DC MOPS groups, coaches small group leaders at her local church and enjoys encouraging mamas, marrieds and singles! At her core, Kaneia is a worshiper (the joyful noise kind 😉 and an intercessor who believes that Abba desires to do an Eph 3:20 thing in all of us, all the time. Besides the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit and her delicious husband, the daily adventure of being at home, full-time, with Elle & Britton lights her world. She can be reached at kmcreativeconsulting@gmail.com.