Come Home!

Welcome to our brand new exciting series, Dear Prodigals.

Today, I want to preach the simple but powerful message, “Come Home!”

Dear friend, have you been away from God?

Have you been avoiding Him?

Have you prioritized other things?

Have your distractions pulled you away from Him?

God misses you.

It’s time to return to Him.

God is your home. Come back!

I got married when I was 32. Before that, I was a single missionary for 18 years. After my wedding, I had a rude awakening. I found out that I cannot love God the way I did for the past 18 years as a celibate.

When I was single, I expressed my love for God by going off on a lot of mission trips. I could receive a phone call in the morning to go to Timbuktu and by afternoon, I’m already on the bus to spend three months there.

But when I got married, I expressed my love for God not by going but by staying. Don’t get me wrong. I still did lots of mission trips. But instead of three months, I went for one week. Because I had a wife and baby waiting for me at home.

As a single missionary, I also had long prayer times. Two hours a day. When I got married, I could only do short ones—fifteen minutes—squeezed in between having romantic dates with my wife and sitting on the floor, playing Pokemon with my boys. I had zero guilt for shortening my prayer time. Because this was now my way of loving God.

One day, I had an uncomfortable conversation with the adult children of a leader of a huge prayer group. All of them hated church because their parents practically abandoned them in the name of God’s work.

The young man told me, “God stole my father from me.”

That was painful to hear. Why did this happen? Here’s my guess. Their father, the prayer group leader, did not follow what Deuteronomy did. As he was moving into a new place in his life—family—he didn’t pray, “Lord, how do You want me to love You today?”

You’ll see this lesson all throughout Deuteronomy.

Have an awesome Feast today!

May your dreams come true,

Bro. Bo Sanchez