Here I am again. Feeling alone and separated. Wandering my own way. Lost you might say. Dancing around in the weeds of doubt, deception, anger, and guilt.
And these weeds are tall and thick. It’s hard to see out of this thorny patch. It’s hard to remember where I came from and reason out where I need to go. But I’m here. I’m here because of my choices. I’m here because life deals from the bottom of the deck.
The thatch of a doubtful heart grows quickly and encircles me to keep me pulled in. It climbs as high as I will allow it to grow and continues its attempted choke on faith, love, and hope.
Weeds. Overwhelmed. A self enabler. I’m weak and unwilling. I’m stubborn and selfish. Unworthy. Building in sinking sand, but arrogant and too prideful to call for help. That is, until desperation reaches forth and finally moves me to shout.
“I can’t do this any longer! I can’t make it out! HELP ME! I’m caught in the thicket and it’s choking the breath out of me and clinching the life from my soul! I can’t do this! I’m lost! Where are You in all of this?!?!”
And the weeds begin to rustle in the breeze. They shuffle in the drifting air and somehow I see a little daylight. A way out maybe. And then I hear it.
I hear it!
The soft, gentle voice whispering the words of Truth in my troubled heart.
‘Oh, you of little faith. I’m right here.”
“Master?” I ask as if it could be anyone else.
“Ahh, my sheep hear my voice and know it. And I know them and they follow me.”
I dropped my head in shame. “Follow me,” he said. I’ve gone my own way once again and here I stand in the weeds of the world. Everything He cautioned me about I touched. I’m too buried in the thorns for Him to reach through to me.
But that’s what He does.
He reaches through the brambles with nail-scarred hands and takes hold. My Master grips me firmly and whispers, “Why do you doubt, my son? I left the ninety-nine others to come find you here.”
And He pulls me out. He snatches me from the dirt. From the weeds of my own distorted doubts and angry ranting.
And next week He may pull me out again. Next month it may be five times. It might be a hundred times next year. But He hears and He comes to save me and any others that have gotten lost in the same unkept patches of the pasture that the world will grow.
