There is hope for us "sinners" with God even if we have squandered and wasted our lives to now!

This morning as I was taking a shower I got into a conversation with the Lord (I tend to do that while showering sometimes) asking him as to what good it had been in my life to have stood up for him at various times in my life where it cost me something.

I remember once having been "persecuted" by fellow laborers for wanting to work hard for our boss digging ditches, as though I was working for the Lord Himself. It was making the rest of my co-workers look bad and they resented that.

That cost me and did not make that job very enjoyable.

And then there was the time when I was working next to other laborers who were about as foul mouthed as one can imagine. Talking about all kinds of things that should have made even men with their sometimes immoral talk, blush. I told them that if they did not stop that kind of talk that I was going to ask the supervisor to release me from the job so that I could get away from their filthy talk.

I really got an earful over that one. How I was not a man and otherwise a baby and you name it. But...they toned down their talk and I had no more problems as shortly after, the Lord worked it out for me to go work elsewhere among others in the complex we had been working on.

To my shame for every time I have done something like that in standing up for righteousness there have been ten times that I have not. Some such times of not standing up are one's that I deeply regret but where the memory of how I failed the Lord and my fellow man during such times also serves to motivate me to not do so again.

Overall my life has not been all that great with respect to what I have accomplished either materially or spiritually and as I went over these things with the Lord I asked Him why my life had not turned out as I had hoped it would in years gone by.

As to whether such times as I did stand up for Him and for His righteousness really amounted to anything at all.

No one fell down and declared that God was in me. No one repented of their sins.

And no one that I know of among you my readers has done anything similar as a result of my sharing my heart with you all or passing along what the Lord gives me to say.

My words continue to fall on seemingly deaf ears and my life as a whole continues to seemingly go nowhere and be nothing.

I am not depressed, upset, or otherwise discouraged as I write this...that is just the way it is.

I began to talk to the Lord some more about why I should read the bible this morning as I wanted to get back to programming. How the bible didn't seem to be relevant to what I needed.

I need to make more money so that I can support my mom in the home country in South America, pay my debts, get better medical care, take care of some teeth problems.

Reading the bible won't help me make more money. At least not right away although in the long run living a life of integrity is a good way to go even from a financial standpoint. But my need is now not next year.

But...I knew in my heart that I should read and that the Lord might have something to say to me and so I made a choice to read. Despite not wanting to.

I was also reminded through His Spirit that He was there and wanted me to pay Him some attention by reading and allowing Him to speak to me through what I read (not that the Lord only speaks to me through what I read but often He does chose that route to reach me with some nugget of encouragement, reproof, or whatever else I need to hear).

And so...I read.

The reading brought me to tears.

You see in my life, you could rightly say that as a result of sinful choices that I have made and continue to make at times that I have ended up being less than what I could have been.

Like all of us my sinful choices have had an impact in my life.

My giving in to fear...many times a fear of success has resulted in my being a bigger failure than I would have been otherwise.

My giving in to various sins that I fall into whether such sins involve laziness, lust, greed, anger or otherwise have resulted in my having less power in my life. Less power that comes from living a righteous life before God and man. Not to mention the consequences to relationship s, jobs, and otherwise that my particular sin patterns have had on my life.

I do not mean to say that I have been a rotten sinner in the eyes of man. By most measures I have lived a very good life. On the surface I am about as righteous as they come. On the surface.

But underneath. In the places and circumstances that only God sees I am a sinful man.

Before His holiness I have squandered his grace and have otherwise fallen way short of being the man that the Lord meant for me to be.

And I remain to this day a sinner saved by grace. Always looking to heaven and wondering why the Lord bothers with me. Why he choses to continually reach out to me with His love. What makes me worth any attention from Him at all.

And the only answer that ever makes any sense is that He loves me. Plain and simple. It is not because I am so worthy of his attention or grace. It is simply that He loves me and wants to be in relationship with me.

God's grace is such that not only does He love me but that love acts to bless my life in ways that I do not deserve. As is the case with all those who call on Him in spirit and truth. Sincerely repenting of their sins and yielding to His rule over their lives.

What broke me and caused me to cry before Him this morning was the story of the prodigal Son.

Not in the usual things that might make one cry. The thought of the Father running, not just walking, but running to meet his son when he saw him from a distance. The Father discounting the way the son had squandered his inheritance and embracing him with open arms back under his household.

None of that broke me this morning as it otherwise has done on other days of reading.

What broke me this morning is that despite the squandered living of the son's life and his sin...that the Father had the fattened calf killed for him.

Jesus Christ was killed for me and on behalf of all of us who must be forgiven for our sins.

If the Father allowed His most precious Son to be crucified for us why in the world would He now withhold any other good thing from us that we might need in life. He won't!

Look at the way the fattened calf was killed for the son who had squandered everything in the story and contrast that to the way the son who had continued being faithful to his father never even got a goat to share with his friends.

Some of us have had a great deal of blessing in our lives. We have made better choices than others in our investments, our choices of spouse...you name it. And we are reaping a better life as a result.

But for others of us, and I fall into this category at least in my own mind if not entirely in reality, we have squandered that which the Lord might have blessed us with had we made better choices than we did.

But what of God's perspective in all this? And how does the story of the prodigal son tie into this to give those of us who have squandered some measure of our lives in lose living, hope? Hope that our lives may yet turn out to be okay if not actually good before we die.

You see God delights to be merciful. He delights in being merciful to those who acknowledge their sin before Him and man. Who come to agree with Him that they deserve nothing from His gracious hand. Who come to realize how incredibly sinful they are before His holiness and how justified in condemning us for our sins God is.

God is not just incredibly merciful but also forgiving. We can be forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ for ALL our sins. In one fell swoop. In one moment of faith and surrender to God at conversion we can have the slate wiped clean as if we had never sinned in the first place. With the slate remaining clean and being continually washed clean of any further sin for the rest of our lives!

We can raise our heads high and walk forgiven!

And the fattened calf will be killed for us too. Every day of our lives.

The past can indeed be undone. We can indeed rise up through His grace to live a life worth living.

I do not mean to say that the sins of our past can be entirely undone with respect to their natural consequences. What I mean is that the things that were stolen from our lives by virtue of having made sinful choices can be replaced by other things that make up for our missed life.

Things that will bring great blessing on our lives and on the lives of others in line with the greatness of God's gracious mercy and love for us.

And so I will continue to look to God my Father for my fattened calf. For that blessing which He means to bestow on me with open arms despite the way that I have squandered what should have been in my life.

Despite the missed opportunities. The failures. The times I fell short or outright rebelled against Him and His righteousness. The times I went my own way in life. The times I messed up relationships that should have not have been messed up. The times I acted with immaturity of character when I should have been blessed with the fruit of godly character instead.

We all have such times in our lives. But God is a God who will kill the fatted calf for those who come to their senses and come back to Him as their heavenly Father.

There is hope! GREAT hope! No matter what we have done in life.

The Father is waiting for us with open arms. He will not hold our sins against us through the forgiveness offered to us in the blood of Jesus Christ.

It is simply a matter of how long we chose to continue living among the pigs, longing to fill our bellies with things that will not bring true satisfaction to our inward being.

The fattened calf is there for us if we will but turn to God in repentance and trust and continue walking before Him as our Father.

No matter how messed up our lives have been!

Carlos