How To Return To God Series

I. STEPS AWAY FROM GOD’S BLESSING

The younger son didn’t just wake up one morning in the pig pen. He ended up there by making a series of bad choices and taking a series of bad steps. Remember, he was always a child of his father, but he placed himself in a position where the benefits of his father’s resources didn’t help him anymore. Once you become a child of God, that relationship cannot be cancelled. However, you can disobey your Father and rebel against His will and break fellowship with Him. When you do this, you put yourself in a place where the blessings and benefits of knowing God are no longer yours. If you can identify these bad steps it may help you determine if you need to come back to your Father.

1. The first step is a restless attitude

It can be summarized in the statement, “No fun!” The younger son experienced what all young people feel at one time or another: He got bored with his family life and he had to urge to experience the “real world.” He wasn’t having enough fun. This restless spirit caused the son to demand his inheritance and leave home once he got the money. He thought the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, so he had a desire to be “out on his own.” The grass IS greener on the other side of the fence–but you can’t afford the water bill!

This restless attitude resides in each of us. It goes by different names. In marriage, it’s sometimes called “the seven-year itch” although it itches long before and long after the seven year mark. I’ve heard husbands and wives speak of feeling “trapped.” They want out because they are afraid they are going to miss out on some pleasure or experience by staying in their boring, old marriage. I don’t think any husband or wife just wakes up one morning and decides they are going to be unfaithful or they are going to leave their mate–it always begins with this uncomfortable feeling of restlessness.

Restlessness is the feeling we are missing out on the fun. You can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden and discover this human hunger is what got us in trouble in the first place. Satan told Eve there was a tree, a fruit, a taste she was missing out on. If God was so good, why was He making her miss that taste? It worked.

We all have this tendency. Over 200 years ago, the hymn writer, Robert Robinson spoke for all of us when he wrote: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.” You need to recognize this dangerous feeling of a restless attitude and resist it like any other temptation. Think about the pain and suffering the younger son would have missed if he had seen this attitude as dangerous and resisted it before he left home. There would be a lot less grief and pain if you could recognize this restlessness and resist it. It’s like a monster in a cage–as long as you keep it in the cage, all it can do is roar at you. But if you let it out of the cage, you are headed for heartache.

2. The next downward step is reckless living.