“The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.'
'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
18The Lord is close to the brokenheartedPSALM 34-35
22The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”23As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. 25As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”
JOURNAL
This morning I woke up in comfort. A soft bed, a cooled home, food in the kitchen, clean water running from the tap. My car waits with a full tank. My phone connects me instantly to people, information, entertainment, and distraction. I live in a country where I am free to worship, speak, create, and move about as I please. I have access to more wisdom, history, and learning than anyone in any previous century could have imagined.
And yet my thoughts so often drift to what I lack.
It’s humbling to admit how quickly my heart forgets. I can list blessings with my lips while my spirit stirs with dissatisfaction. I can thank God in the morning and complain by noon. The tension goes deeper than mood. It echoes the garden, this ache for something more, something now, something just out of reach. I want Eden, but I want it without the waiting, without the thorns.
It’s shocking when I let the truth fully sink in: I am capable of deep selfishness. Not just the mild kind that hoards comfort, but the kind that David himself lived out...lust, deception, manipulation, even orchestrated death. This is the same man called “a man after God’s own heart,” and yet he shattered lives in the wake of his desires. His fall was steep. His sins were real. And still, God did not cast him off.
Instead, God drew near.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).
That kind of mercy unsettles me and saves me. Because I know I need it. I know there’s a part of me that tries to keep up appearances while hiding the mess beneath. But the cross says God isn’t looking for appearances. He’s looking for sons and daughters. He’s looking for me.
In Acts 22, Paul stands before an angry crowd ready to kill him. He had done nothing to deserve it. But still, the crowd shouted him down, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!” The very people of God had missed the heart of God. They wouldn’t let Paul speak the truth. They wouldn’t let him in.
And yet, this is not a new story. Brennan Manning tells of a sinner kept from church, who cries out to God that he has been barred for being unworthy. God's reply pierces: “They won’t let Me in either.”
This gospel is for the ragamuffin, the exiled, the weary, the shamed. It is not a prize for the polished. It is a homecoming for the prodigal.
When the time was right, God sent His Son...not to condemn me, but to redeem me. To adopt me. To call me His.
Today, I remember who I am; not because I have earned it, but because He has declared it. I am not shut out. I am not too far gone. I am not disqualified.
I am a child.
And the Father is already running down the road.
4But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.b 6Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,c Father.” 7So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
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