The possessions accumulated in a lifetime are an illustration of identity. They represent a person’s expression of value and time spent in dedicated labor. This is part of the reason an heir looks forward to inheriting an estate, that is, if it includes valuable items (sentimental objects included). There is a healthy side to inheritance. It is a parent’s transfer of identity and values to their descendants. When I pass away, along with my jackpot portfolio, my sons will receive my pocket watch collection. These timepieces are a reminder of history past and require someone living to wind them up to continue ticking into the future. They are a metaphor for life: armed with lessons of the past, we work in the present to preserve our future. I want these sentiments to be inherited.
Every believer has a valuable inheritance from God the Father. Though the list is long, His estate includes the love of Christ and providential care for life’s daily needs. It also includes God’s expressed power, visible through His divine control over our entire lives. It’s an idea that His children give faithful lip service to but utterly despise in practice. God is our Father when life is stable. God is still our Father when life is a raging storm. In fact, I believe that His will for us includes both stable and unstable situations (a.k.a. tests). Both are part of His control of us. No one contests that life’s blessings are sourced in God. But who would say ‘thank you God’ for the difficult times?
Jesus told a story about a son who demanded inheritance from his father early. Honoring his request, the father gives the portion of his estate (identity) to the son. Now away from the authority of his father and with the new found power to live freely, the son spends all of the inheritance on petty things. Coupled with the onset of famine and no money, he is forced to work feeding swine, competing with them for a chance to eat slops. Thinking that the loss of inheritance equates with loosing his paternal connection, he figures trying to ask for a spot to work among his fathers employees is worth a shot. Yet before he can get down the driveway of his father’s house to ask, there he is greeting him with a kiss, a fine robe, and food to eat. Circumstances forced him back into his father’s arms.
Over the past two years, we have experienced our own famine, the economic recession. Our story is similar to the son. We all remember the freedom of living as we pleased before the recession. Soon, it was this freedom itself that became the blessed prize of life. And then the mighty flow of cash minimized to a trickle. The freedom we previously enjoyed was correspondingly minimized. As a result, we have had to create “a new normal” where we change our standards and grow to enjoy the simple things in life. Additionally, I have heard people express the fact that they have returned to God the Father in a more intimate way.
These are instances where God uses the bad to strengthen his paternal connection to us. All of it is part of our inheritance and His control over life. If we are truly His children, He will not let us get too far away before He comes searching, sometimes using a smoke bomb to bring us out running. Augustine said it well: “We are then truly free when God orders our lives.”
R & R 