Mayhap, I speak to some poor bird which has wandered from its nest. You are a stranger and you have strayed in hither! You recollect a nest in some happy family circle where prayer was wont to be made. You remember the nest in which you were wont to nestle—a little village church where you worshipped God with kindred dear. But you have wandered from your nest. You have lost your friends; you have gone into the world; you are a sinner. Conscious you are that you scarcely dare to face the home of your childhood. You have come away from your old haunts, for you are ashamed to continue in them. You have wandered from your nest. And do you mean to wander on? Is yours to be forever the flight of a bird that hath no roost? “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests”; will you never have a place to lay your head? Are you condemned like the unclean spirit to wander through dry places, seeking rest and finding none? Are you a pilgrim who shall never have a city that hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God? Are you like the phantom ship of which the mariners talk, which flits across the sea for aye, but never reaches a port? Nay friend, you are not so to account yourself, though the devil hath told you that there is no hope; though he hath driven you to desperation and persuaded you that you are given up of God and man. It is not so; it is not so. The eternal Father, bending from high heaven looks down upon you, and by these lips talks to you. Little as you were thinking that you would be found out, he saith to you “Return, return, return” ‘Tis he who makes you say “I will arise and go unto my Father.” He meets you, prodigal; he falls about your neck; he gives you the kiss of reconciliation. He cries today to the messengers of mercy, “Take off his rags, and bring forth the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and let us eat, drink, and be merry, for he that was dead is alive, and he that was lost is found.” The bird has come back and has found her nest, and as the mother-bird is happy when that little fledgling which she thought had fallen on the ground, or had been swallowed by the hawk, comes back, and she covers it with her feathers and bids it nestle under her warm bosom, so is the Eternal Father happy, and as she rejoices, nay infinitely more, so does the Eternal Father rejoice when the wanderer comes back to him and finds comfort in his love.
Believe thou in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust thou in the Father’s grace as manifest in the Savior’s wounds, and so thou shalt find an eternal nest from which thou shalt never wander till thou shalt build thy nest in heaven. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
