Nouwen shares that God calls us to come home, like the father invites his two sons to do in Luke 15. But Nouwen's last section about the Father threw me a little the last time I read it. He contends that after we've answered the call to come home, God calls us to grow from sons into fathers. We're invited to be welcoming, compassionate gospel-bearers that bless our spiritual children.
That sounds spot on with the the rest of the Bible. But I'd never read Luke 15 with that interpretive lens before, and I think I took "becoming the father" as a goal to aspire to, instead of an invitation to look forward to after I'd fully accepted and lived into the invitation to come home. It was much more freeing to read this time.
We studied the 3 parables Jesus taught from Luke 15 this last September at Crossroads, our new student retreat for Texas Gulf Coast InterVarsity chapters. And because I still had the vague memory of the book floating around in my head, I felt a little pressure in our Small Group study to point out that we can identify with the father as well as the sons. I don't think the handful of students I was with resonated, and I felt like I was tacking something on.
 |
| SFA and Aggie InterVarsity at Crossroads |
Now it makes sense - most students haven't responded to the first invitation. So the second invitation isn't on their radar yet. And for some, like me, that might be a good thing. Praise God that he doesn't open up the whole plan to us, but instead invites us to trust him one step at a time. "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation (1 Peter 2:2)." When we skip developmental steps and bite off more than we can chew, we tend to choke. Praise God that he also knows how to handle that too!
No comments:
Post a Comment