Return to Me

“Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart...” 

Joel 2:12

How plaintive the Lord sounds, pleading with us to return to Him. It reminds me of the father of the prodigal son, waiting and longing for his son to return from his journey away from his home and family. Truly the Lord yearns for us to be close to Him. That is why He created us, to have a relationship with Him. It’s not complicated. He loves us with a deep and faithful love, and He wants us to talk to Him and listen to Him. 

Sometimes we have a hard time praying, but like with many things we find hard, the answer can be sometimes very simple. All we need to do is talk to God. There is no formula, no wrong or right way. God does not give us a score or a rating when we talk to Him. We do not have to be good, we do not have to have our life in order. 

There is this scientist named Seymour Garte who is a professor at New York University. Sy grew up with parents who were atheists and Communists. He was also a radical Communist and atheist but the more science he learned, and he has a PhD in biochemistry, the more he felt that atheism did not fit with what he was learning. It took a long time of searching and asking questions, and feeling that he was missing something, when at almost 50 years old, God gave him a dream. 

He describes his dream: “I was outside of a walled garden. I knew that in this garden there was to be found everything I had always been looking for, but there was no way I could climb over the wall to get in. I kept going around the walls, trying to climb up, falling down, and getting terribly frustrated. And then a man showed up, and said to me, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I explained I was trying to get into the Garden but could not scale the wall. He smiled and said, ‘Then why not use the door?’ and pointed to a door in the wall that I hadn’t seen before. I asked what I needed to do to gain entry. He answered, ‘Nothing, just open the door and go in.’ So I did.”

This season of Lent is a special time of grace. Let us spend time with God, ask Him to show us His face. We can tell Him anything! We can even go to Him in anger, frustration, disappointment and pain. Even if we have not talked to Him in years, He will not judge. He will just open His arms in compassion and love.