In the mythic story of The Lion King, the lion cub Simba is separated in his youth from his father through a murder engineered by his uncle, Scar, the character symbolizing the evil one in our story. Scar arranges for the cub to be caught in a stampede of wildebeests, knowing that his father, Mufasa, will risk his life to save his son. He does, and Simba is saved, but Mufasa is killed. Scar then turns on Simba and accuses him, at such a vulnerable and desperate moment, of causing his father’s death. Brokenhearted, frightened, racked with guilt, Simba runs away from home.
This is the enemy’s one central purpose—to separate us from the Father. He uses neglect to whisper, You see—no one cares. You’re not worth caring about. He uses a sudden loss of innocence to whisper, This is a dangerous world, and you are alone. You’ve been abandoned. He uses assaults and abuses to scream at a boy, This is all you are good for. And in this way he makes it nearly impossible for us to know what Jesus knew, makes it so very, very hard to come home to the Father’s heart toward us. The details of each story are unique to the boy, but the effect is always a wound in the soul, and with it separation from and suspicion of the Father.
It’s been very effective.
But God is not willing to simply let that be the end of the story. Not in any man’s life. Remember what Jesus taught us about the Father’s heart in the parable of the lost son: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20 NIV). Filled with compassion, our Father God will come like a loving Father, and take us close to his heart. He will also take us back to heal the wounds, finish things that didn’t get finished. He will come for the boy, no matter how old he might now be, and make him his Beloved Son.
(The Way of The Wild Heart , 56, 57)
What lies have you been believing about yourself that is keeping you from running home to the Father?
4 comments:
wow i never thought about the lion king in that context, its so true though. I have alot of things that keep me from devoting everything to God. School distracts me, friends distract me, even my selfish desires distract me, but the one thing that always reassures me is that he's ALWAYS there no matter what!
i always feel so inferior to some people, like i see people at church and everywhere else that are so much stronger in their faith than me and have been a Christian longer than me, so i tend to think God will love them more and give them priority. but God isn't just an imperfect human, he does have the capability of loving everyone equally, no matter how far you stray from him
Wow God's love is so HUGE!! I feel so blessed that God would care for me even though I am so full of sin. Every trial that I go through God is doing out of his love for me. It reminds me of what Rachael said on Sunday night..God cries when we cry and He recjoices when we're happy. It's so comforting to know God is with me and cares about me so much :)
this little blog entry makes me wonder, why is it so easy for people (and yes i include myself in that) to believe the little devil voice telling us how good-for-nothing we are, and so so so hard for us to believe the uplifting God voice telling us "see, you are good for so much more than you can even concieve"
and why shouldnt we believe the God voice? why are we so inclined to listen to the other voice even though most, if not all, of it is far from the real truth.
why did simba believe scar? why didn't he believe in himself that he surely didnt kill his own father?
why cant we believe in ourselves? whatever happened to that whole concept?
(just thinking out loud here haha)
(((:
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