Vacation at Sea

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, we are like ignorant children who want to continue making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C.S. Lewis

This week our foster child left to go back to her family. She had been with us for two months, and we had definitely seen some change and progress in her (although it was slow). The conditions she had come from were pretty horrific for someone living in a first world country.  While I can't go into details, I will say, our home, though not perfect, was worlds apart from hers.  

When we told her she would be leaving to go back to her family, she didn't really show any real emotion. She just made the statement,  "oh, okay, I am going to go back to my real home".  

When we started fostering I guess I thought kids would think our house was like Disney world compared to where they came from.  And, in all honesty, in some cases, it has been!  But it seems like the kids always have a desire, or at least resignation to the fact, that our home is not their home.  And that what they had was somehow better, because it was theirs. For these kids, I realize that this is how they cope, how they make it through. 

But I do the very same thing!

We have all come from a horrific past. The sin of our hearts, and the sin of this world, made our lives more messed up than we could ever imagine.  But now, we are in this new family.  Yet, we continue to cling to the unfulfilling tiny idols of our past. Our desire for God is weak, and we are satisfied by mud pies in the slum, instead of the vacation at the sea offered to us in Christ. 

We are pleased to go back to the dirty, unhealthy, sinfully broken world....because it is ours, and we are comfortable there.  We know cognitively that we are no longer a part of that world, but part of God's family. Yet we don't know quite what to make of that. So we settle and are easily pleased, by so much less than abundant life.

I am not sure what to do with this, except to pray and preach the gospel to myself daily! 

And so my prayers would be:

• That God would not allow me to settle. 
• That my family would not live as orphans in the slum, but as children in the family of God. 

My preaching points will be: The Gospel!
I know that I am saved, and to whom I now belong. The the gospel did that for me. However, the gospel also daily reminds me of who I no longer am,  and who He has made me to be in Christ!