I saw a detached doll arm while I was on a walk recently. It got the word detached in my head and I keep thinking about it. You ever feel detached? Like you’ve lost your place or maybe lost your grip or footing. Your priorities might be out of line. Perhaps in the middle of change, loss, busyness or even square in the middle of excitement you realize something is off. Maybe it’s a relationship, your job, your purpose or just the next right thing. It’s a weird feeling – sometimes you can’t quite put your finger on it, you just know something isn’t exactly right.
I’ll be vulnerable enough to tell you that I’ve felt like that lately. I’ll stop short of sharing the details on the interwebs. However, it’s something I’ve been praying a lot about and wrestling with to try and get my thoughts righted. I think it’s mostly an insecurity issue for me that the devil likes to poke.
God hit me twice today with the parable of the lost son. That’s in Luke 15 starting at verse 11 if you want to give it a read. I’ll paraphrase here. The youngest son takes his inheritance, squanders it, finds himself starving and taking care of someone’s pigs to stay alive. When he “came to his senses,” (so his senses and a relationship were detached) he decided to go back home and work for his father. Dad sees him coming and basically throws a party. He welcomes him with no questions. He hugged and kissed him. He didn’t ask where he had been, who he had been with or what he had been doing. He was just glad he was alive and back home. Meanwhile his older brother was upset and wouldn’t even go in the house.
This story often comes up when we talk about returning to God after being away from Him. Certainly, that always applies. But what if we take these approaches and apply them to our relationships with people and not just returning to God? Do we have the guts of the son to swallow our pride, own our mistakes and go back to where we were loved? Do we have the unconditional love of the father to accept when someone we love comes back to us? Can we forgive and love without judgement when someone admits they chose poorly?
Or do we get mad like the older brother who stayed? He made better life choices in theory, but he was mad that he wasn’t being celebrated for that. There was no party for doing the right thing. He was jealous. He couldn’t see that his blessings came in the form of not suffering and having his needs met. He was detached from the big picture and focused on wants rather than needs.
Friends, all these roads lead to the same place if we can look through the lens of Jesus. Through a lens of grace upon grace regardless of the situation. Grace in our mistakes. Grace in our relationships with each other. Grace in decision-making. Grace trumps pride. Grace forgives. Grace sees a bigger picture. Grace celebrates. Grace is the glue that puts us back together when we’ve become detached.
Is something keeping you detached or giving you that not quite right feeling? What’s holding you back? Fear? Insecurity? Jealousy? Anger? Pride? Come to your senses and let them go. Trust that God’s grace will make it right and make you whole. When we get past those issues, our perspective improves, and we can begin to heal. That’s reason to celebrate.
If you’re in the position to offer that grace to someone – that forgive the mistake, no judgement, give a hug and not ask questions kind of grace – do it. If someone isn’t living up to your expectations and you’re wondering how much grace you should give, the answer is more. God doesn’t run out of grace for us and that’s the example we follow. That isn’t easy, but it’s where the blessings are. It’s where needs are met, wrongs are righted and where the lost are found.
