Your picture in God's wallet

Notes from Sunday's sermon, February 27

My friend Pastor Andy says "If God had a wallet, your picture would be in it!"  A neat thought, but of the thousands of pictures of your life, which one would God choose for His wallet?  One of your better moments?  or one when you're at your worst?  One that you'd like everyone to know about?  or one you'd rather forget?


I suspect that the picture of you that God would choose for His wallet is the one of you just after the moment of your birth as His son or daughter.  That moment that He promises never to forget (Isaiah 49) when He says "Can a mother forget the child at her breast, the one she has given birth to?  Even if she forgets, I never will forget you."  That's the moment - the moment of utter joy for mother and child.  The moment when all the pain and agony of labor is over.  The moment when the hard work is done.  The moment when the child is laid to the mother's heart, and the two hearts feel each other's beating.  The moment when the child finds the breast, and both mother and child are utterly satisfied.  That's the moment God chooses for your picture in His wallet - the moment when you first because His son or daughter, when He first held you to His heart, when your heart and His beat together and you were both utterly satisfied with one another.


And that picture will not change.  It will not matter to Him whether you do wonderful things throughout your life (and for those, I'm sure He'll be proud of you); and it will not matter to Him whether you do terrible things throughout your life (although each one will doubtless sadden Him).  But there is nothing in your life that will make Him change His mind and take your picture out of His wallet.  He'd rather die than let that happen - and so He did!


Some of us have times in our lives (some have more of these times than others) when we wonder whether God has given up loving us.  These times may be prompted by guilt, or by shame, or by the condemnation of others.  We even know of mothers who give up on their children.  But not God.  He will not - He cannot - give up on you.  Your picture is in His wallet, and no matter how far from Him you think you are on any given day, His arms are wide open to welcome you to His heart.