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Close, yet so far

My son,’ the father said, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”
Luke 15:31
This was the father’s response, to the demand “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.”
 
And I make a similar demand, there in my summer brokenness
 
Look! All these years I have been seeking to honor you with my life….I had all these kids in faith that this is what you were leading us to.   We want to serve you in the margins of society. We’ve given our lives for the end goal of reaching the lost. We have been trying to be used by you for your
Kingdom….and “you never gave me even a measure of joy…or celebration”. All I have gotten out of this deal is an enormous workload, always more to do, but never feeling like I am doing enough.
 
My daughter, the Father says, you are alway with me, and everything I have is yours.
 
You are always close,
 
yet you are always so far away.
 
You are the lost one.
 
You are near, yet far because you see your children as a work project, instead of a treasure trove of joy to be discovered. (Matthew 18:3)
 
You are near, yet far because you mind is centered on the slaving away for me, instead of the resting in me. (Isaiah 30:15)
 
You are near, yet far because you bear up under the pressure to “hold it all together”  and you forget that I am the one who holds all things together by the power of My Word. (Hebrews 1:3)
 
You are near, yet far because you call on me with your tongue, but your heart and mind are relying on yourself. (Prov. 3:5, Luke 10:27 )
 
You are near, yet far because you think I love and receive you because of the work you do for me, when it is really the work I have done for you that that causes you to remain in my love (John 15:9)
 
You are near, yet far because you think I am depending on you to be faithful to get the ministry work done, when I really just want to allow you the joy of joining me in what I am already doing.(I Cor. 3:9)
 
You are near, yet far because you are jealous of the story I am writing in someone else’s life, rather than paying attention to the story I am writing in yours. (Ephesians 2:10)
 
You are right here, so close to me. Close in your Christian activity. Close in your Sunday worship. Close in your speaking my name and even praying to me.
 
Yet you are so far away.
 
You have lost sight of Whose Presence You Live in. (Hebrews 13:5)
 
You, are the prodigal daughter. Never leaving the “house” but straying from the Presence that abides in the house.