If God Sent Home Report Cards

Would you hang yours on the fridge or hide it under the bed?

Have you ever seen a stray dog wander into a park right after the picnickers who were grilling out had packed up and gone home? It runs back and forth, nose to the ground, looking everywhere for a free taste of good fortune. When I look back over my faith life, that's a bit what it looks like. I suppose I might have been like the seed that fell among the thorns in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13. But in my reflection of the story, I had the benefit of God’s grace and skill as the Master Gardener.

On many occasions, just when the weeds were about to choke me out, the Lord pulled just enough of them away to let me have a little blessing of sunlight and rain. He gave me a whiff of something better to turn me away from the toxic trash that I was about to root out of the ashes of resentment over the bounty He gave to others. Yet on many of those times that I turned, I ended up wandering further from Him. Many but not all. For many years of my life, I was like a rerun of an episode of the Prodi…