I was going to write about another topic, one that I think is very important. This one however is really pressing on my conscience. I want to tell a story about something I did in the past, that hurt someone I love very deeply.
I once placed 1st in a science fair for a project I had done on iterated function systems. I didn’t deserve the win, at least not in hindsight, but that’s for another day. After winning several awards I was feeling very important and not really considering other people.
My friends all wanted to go celebrate with me. I thought that was an excellent idea, and as a young student who just got his license I wanted to go where everyone goes for a fancy celebration dinner, Pizza Hutt! I got in my car (my parents car) and all of my friends poured in and there wasn’t room for my brother. Mom and dad said go straight to the restaurant and they would drop my brother off. So I took off with my buddies, all excited.
As we pulled through the Pizza Hutt parking lot, we noticed it was completely full. I’m not sure which of us mentioned it, or who decided, but before I thought about it we were heading to another pizza place on the other side of town. I don’t even remember the name. I don’t remember what I ate, or what I had to drink. Yet there was something about this situation that I will never forget. As we finished and paid, my parents walked in and they were red in the face. I knew that look. I had done something wrong.
My brother had waited for over an hour at Pizza Hutt, in a booth by himself with no money. I had all the cash to pay for the meal. I had simply forgotten him. To this day I have trouble thinking about it, because someone so special in my life had been waiting for me, and I simply forgot him. If you are reading this Danny, and I know I’ve said it before, but I am sorry. There is no excuse for it, I simply forgot you.
It illustrates something we should all consider. There is a brother in our life, a brother who has done the most powerful thing in the world for us. A brother who died in our place. You see the bible says (I find I write you see a lot in my blog) that we are the adopted as children of God.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
Ephesians 1:3-8
As a man who has adopted brothers, I find it especially powerful. I know that an adopted brother can mean so much to you that you forget that they were adopted. You start treating them the same as you do your real brother. In my case, I pray that I never treat anyone the way I have my brother in the past. You start loving them as if they have always been there. You do things for them just because!
Yet Jesus who died for us, our own brother, we often forget. We agree to meet him somewhere, then we don’t show up. He does. He is expecting us. He sits there waiting patiently. Then in a show of love, just like my brother, he forgives us for forgetting him. It’s as if we never did. My brother forgave me. He never brings it up. I don’t remember him EVER bringing it up. I remember that everyday after that he treated me just like he did, before I forgot him. Jesus is the same. I am sure he is grieved, when we fall away from Him. I am sure just like it hurts me when someone forgets me, it aches inside. But he forgives them, just as you and I should, just as my brother did.
I pray that all of us will begin to thirst for God in such a way that we never forget to meet him somewhere. That when we think of something to do, we think is God in this? Am I going to go where God is? Or am I going to forget him and end up somewhere else, where he isn’t? He doesn’t change. He will always be there, waiting. How can I make this decision in a way that will not only take me where he is, but keep me always walking in that direction.
In Christ,
Brian