PRONE TO WANDER

My wife has a pet chicken. That’s right. A pet chicken. A rooster to be exact. If you know Linda, that’s no surprise. She’s the quintessential animal whisperer. She named the bird “Sweet Tea” because he drank from her iced tea glass. In his “chickhood,” her feathered friend sat on her lap, atop a towel, watching TV. (I’m just glad he wasn’t a vulture!) Several times I considered switching to the Food Channel to give him a glimpse of his future, but my better judgment prevailed. 

Last week, Linda discovered some of his feathers on our road and couldn’t locate Sweet Tea. She was distraught, afraid he’d been promoted to poultry paradise. Then she found the rooster alive and well. He had simply wandered off.

Believe it or not, we’re all a bit like Sweet Tea. I can’t imagine jumping out of bed tomorrow and saying, “I think I’ll walk away from Jesus today,” and then heading out on a sinning spree like the Prodigal Son. But a greater danger exists for us: slowly slipping away from our passion for the Lord.

Hebrews 2:1 warns, “We must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it.” Like Sweet Tea, we can easily wander off into the land of spiritual lethargy. It’s not that we’ve turned cold toward God. We’re simply lukewarm. Dull and discouraged. And we don’t even realize it’s happening.

The classic hymn Come Thou Fount, by Robert Robinson, contains this line: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. There’s an unverifiable story, that later in life, Robinson lost his passion for God. He was riding in a stagecoach when a young woman began humming the melody. Robinson looked at her and said, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds… to enjoy the feelings I had then."

Like waves wearing away cliffs, Satan will take his time to slowly wear away our passion for Jesus, robbing us of our joy and peace. So what’s the solution? Simply this: Pursue the Lord; press into Jesus; live perpetually in his presence. Every day. It’s not easy in our world, with so many distractions. But it’s critical for our spiritual survival. Let’s not be dumb birds like Sweet Tea.

Principle: We all possess a tendency to wander away from our Lord.

Ponder:  

  • What spiritual practices help me develop a deeper intimacy with Jesus?

  • What changes might I need to make in my life to remain more closely connected to the Lord throughout the day?

  • Pursue: For a deeper dive, study Hebrews 2:1-4.

Prayer: “Lord, remind me that I am ‘prone to wander.’ Draw me closer to your heart each and every day­­.”

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Barney Cargile