“Even now, declares the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.”
Joel 2:12-13 (NIV)
Since I started writing meditations over the past four years, there is a prevailing message within my spirit, which constantly emerges through everything I write, and it’s that God keeps pursuing every human soul to reveal His love and mercy to them. Sometimes I say to myself, why am I writing the same theme again, but then I realize it’s not my decision, since I’m being compelled by the Holy Spirit.
Last week I was watching a show on the Christian TBN network, where a man was sharing his renewal of faith through a near death experience. I have read and heard many near death stories, but his especially drew my attention.
Marty always believed in Jesus as a child and a teenager, but as an adult, he drifted away from his faith. Through the stressors of his life, working as a County Sheriff, having two failed marriages, and in increasingly poor health, he was aware of his need to return to the Lord, but for some reason, he kept avoiding Him.
At the age of 51, Marty suffered a cardiac arrest, was hospitalized, intubated and lying comatose in intensive care. While unconscious and in a coma, he had either some type of lucid dream or near death experience.
Marty found himself standing in the presence of Jesus. He felt the power of His love but he was so ashamed, he covered his face with his hands, expecting Jesus to point out all his faults and failures, but instead, Jesus spoke gently, “Son, come back to Me and do what I’ve called you to do.”
“Return to God” is the message of all the prophets in the bible and it’s still the message today. Marty awoke from his lucid comatose dream conversation with Jesus, with a desire to return to the Lord he knew in his youth. He now lives with a strong sense of mission to remind people that Jesus loves us and is returning one day. The most prevailing truth that stayed with Marty is that Jesus never stops pursuing all people, driven by His pure love and mercy.
I‘ve never had a near death experience, and never heard the voice of Jesus talking to me, but the idea of God being in constant pursuit of every human heart, driven by His love, is a truth that has always propelled me to write. It sounds simple but as Augustine once said, every person needs to know that God loves them as if they were the only person in the world.
In his coma experience, Marty heard Jesus call him “son”, and like a father of a prodigal, He asked him to come back and do what He called him to do. I believe Jesus is saying that to everyone, from every background of faith.
Jesus will return someday, but He is still busy adding more members to His church. Whether He returns as a Father to a prodigal child, or a Bridegroom to a beloved bride, or a faithful Friend to the lonely, it’s His divine love that perpetually draws every human heart to Him. Jesus desires that all people return to Him, but He also desires that we long for His future return to us, as was the cry of John’s heart in the book of Revelation, “Come Lord Jesus!”
Whatever we know and believe about God, we all have hearts that are prone to wander and attention that easily drifts from God, but Jesus never stops pursuing us, inviting us to partake of His unconditional mercy and love. He’s in an endless pursuit to reveal His love to all people. His love is incomprehensible to our human minds, but it can be fully embraced with our hearts, as we yield ourselves to Him.
Lord, open our hearts to keep returning to you, listening to you and doing what you have called us to do, as we keep believing that you, Jesus, will come again. Amen
