Afraid to Come Home

It was a dry, cold December night. Frost and unmelted snow covered my yard there in Bend, Oregon. I was a Junior at Bend High, and as I stood outside on our concrete porch I was afraid to open the front door. Sitting in our driveway behind me was our family car – a late model sedan, which, thanks to me the driver, had just broadsided a parked industrial truck. The mangled side mirror hung by a wire. Several dents and scratches now decorated the side of the car. The icy road had gotten the best of me.

After getting enough courage to open the door I realized my parents were asleep. So then I found myself outside their bedroom door listening to myself breath for about an hour. I knew that my father would be angry (even though he was a nice guy).

Finally I mustered up enough guts to open the door and break the news…

Have you ever felt this way with God? Harboring feelings of failure or a fear of disappointment – you distance yourself from Him, afraid to face Him or hoping to do something better that would merit his approval. You stand on the outside afraid to come in. As long as you stand out in the cold, you have forgotten something:

Ephesians 2:8-10 (New International Version) says, “8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

This is the Good News! There is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus! We have nothing to fear when we come to Him! He runs to greet anyone that would incline their heart towards Him.
So today, don’t be afraid of your heavenly Father. Come home to Him – He promises to welcome you in. Oh, and by the way, my dad was pretty easy on me after all.