God loves black sheep.
Image generated with AI by author.
I have become somewhat obsessed with the Father’s love for black sheep. Paul, Samson, and King David, to name a few. Growing up, I took a morbid sense of pride in my identity as the black sheep of my family. John Anderson’s “Black Sheep” still holds a place of prominence in my playlist. I no longer take any pride in that identity except to point out, “Look who He loved anyway.”
God loves grabbing ahold of screw-ups and thrusting them into greatness. It’s not lost on me that God elevating a loser sends a clear message, “he didn’t do this on his own; who do you think helped?” I love it. The reason is he did the same for me.
In my pride, I walked away from God. I needed to make my own mistakes. I could define my morality to fit my desires. I could find my meaning and purpose in life. If you pick up on all the I’s, you start understanding what I was like. Selfish, immoral, weak. It turns out that living for yourself isn’t just lonely. It’s empty.
When you are selfish and weak, you are compromised. You have a preexisting condition that makes you susceptible to other conditions. I picked up quite a few without God. Alcoholism, depression, and anxiety, to name a few. I was in an awkward position. I never stopped believing in God; I thought I could do things independently. Ironically, I liked to blame him for the problems I experienced running my show. “If you are so good, why am I dealing with this?” “Why would you make me this way?” I wanted all the free will and none of the responsibility. I was experiencing the difference between knowing God and God making himself known to me. I had shut the door in his face like an insolent teenager slamming it on a parent who had just disciplined them.
Romans 8:28 -“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” I had known and loved God my entire childhood before turning my back on him in my teenage years and young adult years. I put up the walls, and as soon as I constructed them, he began faithfully chipping away in the beautiful yet sometimes painful way he does. What lesson could be learned if he pulled me out of my valley prematurely? What are the outcomes for children without discipline?
In my valley, the pain gave me clarity. I can’t do this life thing on my own. What I thought would make me happy only made me miserable. What I thought was freedom revealed itself to be bondage. Like the prodigal son, I knew my father’s servants were eating better than me in my squalor. I didn’t return expecting a welcome party. I humbly hoped for better than the pig slop I was feeding myself.
I crawled back to him. I wish I could say I ran, but I didn’t quite grasp the enormity of his love. Every time I started to stand, I slipped, unable to give up control, but that didn’t stop the crawling. Like a thirsty man in the desert, I searched for the oasis I had sheltered in as a child. As a child, my parents had lovingly led me down the straight and narrow path to God. My route back to him was full of detours and rebuilding bridges I had carelessly burned. Stumbling blocks had to be dug up and removed from the path.
God, in his grace, gave me a Proverbs thirty-one wife in the midst of my valley. With God and her, I journeyed. My desert didn’t seem to have an end then. After seven years of us being married, the wall I had thrown up came crashing down. I was listening to a church service driving to a job site, and the preacher said something. I already can’t tell you what it was, but I was sobbing. I was seated at the table with my Father in my truck. I couldn’t talk myself out of it or speak my unworthiness over myself. The love and grace were too palpable, too overwhelming, too undeniable. I was home. It clicked. All the things I was so afraid to lose if I surrendered all of a sudden meant nothing to me. Nothing could compare to this.
All of this is not to say, “I’ve arrived.” I’m like a baby sheep wobbling to his feet, learning to walk again, but when I look down, I notice something. My coat is no longer black. I didn’t do it, but it’s hard not to see the difference.
