Imagine that you inherited a large sum of money and decided to buy an island for your friends and family. You built housing and provided anything they could ever need on the island. If a new need arose you met that need out of love for the people you chose to live there. They want for nothing because of your provision. Over time they forget about you and glorify themselves in the luxury you provide. They become arrogant and selfish, trying to store extra things for themselves to obtain status over the other people. None of the people recognize your name anymore. You feel sad and angry. Maybe you ask them to take one day per week and remember the source of their provision. That doesn’t get followed. You institute rules for them so that they have to regain an outward focus toward you. They fail at that as well. You finally have to travel to the island to explain what your reason for the island was, and that you want them to remember the love that built it and continues to provide for it. You want them to be thankful and love you in return. You become an example to them of how you desire for them to live. They reject you. They don’t like the idea of letting you change what they have established in your absence so they look for a way to kill you. Finally, you institute a message of love that encompasses all of the original rules and gives them hearts that resemble the heart that brought the island into existence.

                I ask you to put yourself in that situation and imagine how you would feel. Would you be angry with your people? How sad would their selfishness make you? How would the rejection when you traveled to help them make you feel? I’ll let you have your own moment with the feelings that stir within you.

This is the frustration of God. He has more power and presence than we can imagine with this human example. God is far too big for us to ever understand Him or to fully see His plan. I wanted you to feel in your heart what we would see from His throne. Then imagine that He looks at you with unconditional love and accepted death to reconcile you to Him. He’s building a new island for those that choose to give Him the recognition and thanks. I don’t ask you to fully understand the infinite God. I hope you don’t let yourself become complacent and resemble the people who forget where their provision comes from.