DAD'S RAMBLINGS -- UNDER HIS WINGS

DAD'S RAMBLINGS – UNDER HIS WINGS

" 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted together your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!' " (Luke 13:34)

I can almost hear the sob in Jesus' voice as he mourned over His people. "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem." Through the centuries, God had endured their wanderings away from His loving protection. Like a mother hen who wanted to bring her straying chicks back under the shelter of her wings, God had called to Israel through the prophets, calling them back to Himself. But they rejected His calling and killed His messengers.

And now God was visiting them again in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus, and still they were rejecting Him, and would kill Him. As John, the apostle, later wrote, "He came to His own and His own did not receive Him" (John 1:11). It must have broken God's heart.

How often God calls us to Himself, and still we insist on going our own way. In another metaphor, "All we like have sheep have gone astray. We have turned every man to His own way" (Isaiah 53:6). And yet He calls us. He keeps drawing us to Himself, and we keep running away, like the little chicks. I imagine that if there is one thing that causes God sorrow, it would be that we spurn His love that reaches out to us.

Do you know what it is like for someone to spurn your love? To feel rejected when you just wanted to love them? I have had those times and it is a horrible feeling. How it must break His heart when we run away from Him.

But God just keeps extending His wings to us, saying, "Come." "Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28). When we get exhausted by the struggles of life, we can fall into His arms and find strength, help, rest, and peace. As the Psalmist wrote, "He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge" (Psalm 91:4I); and again, "I will trust in the shelter of Your wings" (Psalm 61:4b)

"Under His wings, I am safely abiding, Though the night deepens and tempests are wild. Still I can trust Him, I know He will keep me. He has redeemed me and I am His child. Under His wings, Under His wings, Who from His love can sever? Under His wings, my soul shall abide, safely abide forever."

Love, Dad

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