Think You’re Too Prodigal For God? Part One

As I’ve said in my previous post, “The Forrest Gump Of Christian Women”, I have been what seems like perpetually prodigal. I walk away, I slink home. I drift away, I crawl home.
Unlike the prodigal son Jesus told about in Luke 15:11-32, I didn’t decide at some point that I wanted to try life elsewhere from my Father’s house. Not once did I intentionally leave His side. It’s more like God and I were at WalMart, I wandered a few steps to look at something shiny and poof, “Where’s my Daddy?”
I did this so many times in my life that you would think I’d learn to stick so close that God Himself would trip over me. But, like I’ve said, I’m a slow learner.
Each time I returned, it was with deep shame and regret. Each time, I was overjoyed that the Lord welcomed me back into His arms. But each time, I was increasingly afraid that I had used up my second chances. Each time, I was more and more worried that God had had enough of my comings and goings.
I clung to verses like Romans 8:38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I hoped on promises like "Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love" and "I will never leave you or forsake you".
I knew these words were real. I knew the promises were true. The problem was, every time I needed to return to God, I became less sure that those promises still applied to me.
Mind you, I’m talking about a pattern I repeated many times over the almost thirty years that I have been a living, breathing, redeemed, paid-for miracle. I’ve got a genius IQ but my common sense is developmentally-disabled. I’ve often wondered, “What’s the point of being so smart if I still have to live the life of an idiot?”, but what I should have been wondering was, “What’s the point of living like an idiot when you’re actually pretty smart?"
Fortunately, God has a habit of loving the dim-witted.