Straying from Home (Friday Devotional)

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

- 1 Peter 2:24-25

As we pulled up to her grandparents’ house this past Saturday, Lindsey and I noticed something unusual several houses down: five small, white dogs scampering around with no owner in sight. Looking closer, we could see that each one had a collar on, signaling to us that they were not strays. I hopped out of the car and started toward them slowly, hoping to get hold of one so that I could call the phone number on its collar and get them all back to their owners. But as soon as they saw me, they retreated, yapping frantically as they fled. I’d made it halfway down the street trying to get close enough to one to grab its collar when I saw them sprint toward a chain link fence and through its open gate…right into their own backyard, where their relieved owner was waiting, having just discovered them missing. The dogs had wanted their taste of independence, but when they got scared, the only place they wanted to go was back to their master.

In 1 Peter 2:25, we learn that in one sense we are not so different from those dogs. “For you were going astray like sheep,” the verse says. We are all prone to this original sin of idolatry, thinking we know better than God and can find fulfillment elsewhere. So we look for satisfaction in other places: in work or money or drugs or entertainment or sex, anywhere that brings us happiness, however fleeting.

But God willing, eventually the same thing happens to you as did to the prodigal son of Luke 15, or, for that matter, to the dogs I saw last weekend. The world gets a little too strange, a little too scary, a little too real, and the same independence which was initially so liberating suddenly becomes terrifying, and you just want to go back to the safety of home.

It is only the blood of Jesus that makes such a return possible, that frees you from the burden of sin and enables you to return to “the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” His sacrificial death on the cross has cleansed you from unrighteousness so that you might live for righteousness, and “by his wounds you have been healed.” Freed from sin’s clutches, you are able to be in fellowship with God and to live for Him, to enjoy the abundant life He always intended for you.

There may be times you stray beyond the bounds of faithfulness, but you will never be a stray again—the cross is your collar, marking you as one bought with a price, as someone with a loving master waiting for your return. When you are tempted, when you look beyond the fence line and wonder what it would be like to go back to the life you knew before, remember that sin may offer the mirage of independence, but only Christ can offer the happiness of home.