About a month ago, someone asked me, "Why are you spending your time, energy, and money on this 'recovery thing'?  You don't have a substance abuse problem.  Couldn't you better use your talents and energy somewhere else?  Couldn't you better serve God or the community somewhere else, somewhere where there will be success?  You do know that an addict is always an addict?  Why waste your life?" 

Sometimes the people who ask these questions are Christians who feel that my participation on Sunday morning could better serve God.  Sometimes the people are other folks I'm connected to through some other venue.  Regardless, they just don't get it or me.  But that's okay because God gets me.

The short of it is that I am trying to love and to follow God with everything I am and have which again is not considered popular or successful by this world.  If I want to follow Him, I have to be a part of what He is doing in this earth.  

What is the God of the universe, the creator of all things, doing in the earth today?  What He has always been doing - HE IS ON A RECOVERY MISSION.  He is seeking to save, to RECOVER ALL that He lost. 

Through creation, God invited us into a "love" relationship with Him.

• We were uniquely created "in His image" with the capacity to love, to think and make decisions, to create, to be kind to and compassionate and cooperative with each other, etc.  None of His other creations can do this.  The angels marvel at our uniqueness.
• He did not "need" us, but He wanted something or someone to love Him and to appreciate His excellencies.  By the way, that's the definition of worship: to love Him and to appreciate who He really is and all that He has done.  The rest of creation cannot do this.
• So we, who were created to be worshippers, became rebels through the fall.  Because we now had a sin nature, our love and worship was no longer acceptable.  We now were lost to Him, separated by our transgressions. 
• Sometimes we get so focused on ourselves that we forget that God suffered loss too; He lost the entire creation and us because of one man's sin and ultimately gave up His one and only Son so that we could be reconciled to Him.  Since that day, God's mission has been a RECOVERY MISSION to regain what He lost.

God's first major attempt at recovery was to choose a people to be His own.  He desired to bless them so that they would be a blessing to the entire world.

• However, Israel ended up in slavery in Egypt, so He delivered them.  When Moses would ask Pharaoh to let God's people go, his reason was always that they could worship Him.
• After God delivered Israel, He made a way to restore them to the worshippers they were in the beginning - the Law.  The law was designed to take out what the world had put in them and make them a holy people unto Him alone.  A holy God could only receive worship from a holy people. 
• This didn't work either.  Israel remained rebels who would not love, trust, and obey Him. 

Only blood could make a way that we could be transformed from rebels into the worshippers we were designed to be in the beginning. 

• This time, not just any blood would do.  This blood would have to be holy blood, His own blood, the blood of His only son, Jesus. 
• Jesus said that He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
• Through Jesus' blood shed on Calvary, He opened a door through which we could be transformed from rebels to worshippers, where a "love" relationship between us and between Father God could be recovered, restored, once and for all.
• Through Jesus, we can enjoy that "love" relationship just like the bride and bridegroom in the Song of Solomon.  We can see and appreciate His excellencies and tell everyone about our "true love."  You know, when you fall in love with someone, you want to tell everyone about this one you love.  When we worship, that is what we do: we tell the one we love how wonderful He is, and we also tell others how wonderful He is.

One of the most beautiful stories in scripture to me is the story of the Prodigal Son.  I really think the story is named incorrectly.  Most of us look at the story from the perspective of the son who wandered far from home and of all that he lost.  However, I think the most important perspective to this story is to view it from the father's point of view.  He is a picture of Father God, THE GOOD FATHER.  (Luke 15)

In this story, we have a demanding son wanting his inheritance.  He leaves home and squanders what he was given finding himself penniless, friendless, and homeless in a far off pig pen.  Throughout this whole time, the good father waits and looks with compassion out over the horizon for his son, his "love" to come home. 

The son intends to repent, but the father's choice is to celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now is found.  Not only does the father celebrate, he restores unto the son what the son lost.

• honor, authority - the best robe
• relationship, sonship - sandals, something not worn by slaves
• identity, purpose - ring
• inheritance - fattened calf for special occasions

That son will never be the same again. 

There are so many other "lost" stories - the lost sheep, lost coin, etc.  It's a motif that runs throughout the entire Bible.  Since day one, THE GOOD FATHER HAS BEEN ON A RECOVERY MISSION TO SEEK AND TO SAVE ALL THAT HE LOST.

This is why I do what I do.  I want to be a part of what God is doing.  I love planting seeds of  hope, seeds that I may never see harvested myself, seeds that are GOOD, GOD seed.  I love the realness of it all, the nitty gritty.  It keeps me real, keeps me tender.  I love watching them born like a nurse whose job is to be in the birthing room.  Some of them are birthed quickly; some of them are birthed only after long, difficult labor; unfortunately, some of them never make it.  I love watching them grow, watching their baby steps turn into big boy pants. Is it messy?  Yes.  Isn't anything worth eating messy?  By the way, God likes messy.  After all, His son was born in a manger, and if the cross wasn't messy, I don't know what is. 

I love this recovery thing.  It has made me a better person.  I love to see God's huge loving heart  poured out over all that He made.  He walks in their midst.  He speaks to and sings over them.  I count it a privilege to be allowed to be a part of this.  Thank you, Father.  Thank you, Michael Bynum.

I'm not a cynic anymore.  Those in recovery can have success in Jesus. 

So . . . I tip my hat this day to Seth, Barry, Jason K, Jason W, Garrett, Wes, Sam, Elmo, Hugh, John, Mark, Richard,  Leslie, Natalie, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .