“‘For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.”
-Luke 15:24
Stomachs grumbling, and bodies protesting my teammate and I made our way to the final house of the day. The day had been a long on, with two teammates home sick with salmonella-leaving only four of us left to do our door-to-door ministry. (Everyday we split up into two different teams, which means it was only Janelle and I sharing at every house we went to that day).
Storm clouds were rolling in, my body was weary from hours spent in the sun, and all I wanted to do was walk back to the Pastor’s house for lunch. “I think it would be better if we went to one more house before lunch,” expressed our Pastor for the week.
Janelle and I looked at each other, annoyance apparent in our eyes. Nevertheless, we put on our brave faces, and walked towards the last house. With smiles plastered upon our faces, Janelle and I greeted the beautiful woman, and introduced ourselves. She told us her name is Mary. We sat while our Pastor exchanged a few words with her in Chichewa.
“She is a Muslim woman,” our Pastor told us, “but she is willing to listen to the Word of God.”
Janelle and I exchanged a look of surprise. This was the first time that I was going to be sharing my faith with a person of the Muslim faith. I knew it was my turn to share a Word from the Bible, and I could feel myself immediately start to get nervous. Door-to-door evangelism terrifies me, and I did not even know what I was going to say to this woman.
But I could hear Jesus speaking to me: “Tell her the Parable of the Prodigal Son.”
For those of you who don’t know, a parable is a story that is used to illustrate a bigger picture. The Parable of the Prodigal Son (found in Luke 15,) is a parable about a son who basically takes his half of his father’s fortune and runs away to far off lands. While he is gone, the son squanders all that he has on prostitutes and worthless endeavors. He spends all the money, and he finds himself starving and miserable, eating pig fodder all alone. So, the son decides to go back to his father’s house, and beg his father to take him back into his house as a servant. However, when the father sees the son coming, he immediately goes running towards the son, kissing him, clothing him with his robe, and welcoming him back as his son. The father then proceeds to throw an excessive celebration for the lost son, saying “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”
I explained to Mary the parallels of this story with the Gospel. I told her how we are all like the lost son, squandering away our lives on worthless endeavors and sinful investments. And when we hit rock bottom, eating pig fodder all alone, we realize that we left our Father for no reason. But we are not sure if we are worthy enough to go back into His favor, because of all the bad things that we have done. We don’t know if we will be welcomed back, so we’re not sure if we should even go to our Father at all.
But as soon as we take the first few steps towards Him, our Heavenly Father comes running to us to pick us up, kiss our faces, and clothe us with His righteousness that was won for us by Jesus Christ. He throws an extravagant feast for us in Heaven, a celebration of magnificent caliber. He welcomes us back into His favor as one of His own children.
When I finished sharing, I could tell that Mary was thinking intently about all that I had just said. She spoke a few words to our Pastor, “She said that she is very thankful for the words that you have spoken to her today. She said that she would like to become a Christian because of what Jesus has done for her.”
Above our heads, thunder rolled across the sky in a magnificent celebration of Mary’s dedication to the Lord. As Janelle guided Mary through a prayer of commitment to the Lord, I could physically feel Him smiling over her in joy. I knew how proud and happy God was to finally have Mary in the family.
Before we left Mary’s house for lunch, I exclaimed to her: “Mary, that thunder you are hearing is all of heaven celebrating their new addition to the family!” As soon as we walked away, the heavens opened up, and the rain came down. The Lord’s celebration was physically raining down upon the household. The thought sent goosebumps up my spine, and set a fire of joy inside of my heart. He is a Good Good Father, who celebrates all of His children, and blesses them abundantly.
And what a feast it is.
“Your mercy rains from heaven, like confetti at a wedding, and I am celebrating in the downpour.”
-Rend Collective, “Finally Free”
