We see a healthy tree trunk with all the green leaves and we think nothing of it, but nature is one of the processes that God has set in place and continues because He has created a renewable and perfect design. That doesn’t mean that trees don’t get deseases or things don’t go wrong, they do, but that God’s design is perfect in that it can renew itself constantly despite all the harm that comes its way.

ISAIAH 65:1-2

I am sort by those who did not ask for me;

I was found by those who did not seek me.

I said “Here I am, Here I am,”

To the nation that was not called by my name.

I have stretched out My hands

all day long to a rebellious people.

Who walk in a way that is not good,

According to their own thoughts.

When walking through the living museum Beamish, I came across an old church and the bible was open to Isaiah 65. The passage struck me. Doesn’t God constantly stand with his arms wide for all of us, even when we are being rebellious and would rather live life their own way, making their own moral arguments rather than let God’s natural law take place in their hearts. That is something I did some years ago, stop fighting against God’s law and finally gave into the struggle and accepted Jesus as my Lord and my Saviour. Life since then has been in full colour, like the difference between watching a black and white tv to suddenly getting the latest ultra HD colour.

And yet things still go wrong. I work at schools that predominantly have children from disadvantaged backgrounds and these children try to rebel more often or not against the school and always seem to end up in trouble. One teacher told me the only reason these children come to school is so that their parents don’t get fined. Imagine knowing that, how would that make you feel? These certainly provoke questions like why am I here? So I see schools constantly tell children that they should behave, or they should do this or that, or try to achieve, but nothing seems to change. I think we need to break the cycle, tell these children that they are made in the image of God, and they are loved even when they are doing wrong. Even when they are doing the worst things they could possibly do God is standing with His arms wide waiting for them to stop struggling against him and turn and return to His wonderful loving hold.

So tonight spare a thought for these children that are feeling lost, feeling that they are not lost and have never heard of a Loving Father, a loving Son and a loving Holy Spirit. Never heard that God is standing with His arms wide waiting so that he can forgive and come and dwell in another believer and change their lives.