Coming Home
My friend Houston once said that if we could see an aerial view of our house in Chattanooga … To truly see it with kingdom eyes … there would be a beacon of light shooting up out of my backyard. The light of the living Christ coming up out of our treehouse. It's Holy Ground.
The walls of that treehouse have soaked up the prayers of God's children. My prayers. The prayers of college guys. The prayers of my high school guys. Bold prayers in which high school guys spoke the names of their friends, who were lost and broken and dead in their sin, before the throne of the Father. One of those names that was prayed a countless number of times was the name of my friend Peyton.
Peyton graduated high school last year. He was one of those guys that stayed away more than he came around. He lived life on the fringes. Running and hiding. When his friends invited him to Young Life he would grow angry and hateful. To him, the gospel was the stench of death and he ran from me when I would pursue him. He was running from God, a good and perfect Father. He was a prodigal running into the far country.
A few weeks ago, he got into some pretty serious trouble and found himself in this distant land, far from his Father, broken, desperate and alone. But my friend Jack, who graduated with Peyton, who prayed for him by name many times in that treehouse, had continued to pursue him this past semester during college. And one conversation over Thanksgiving led Peyton to begin the long journey home. Jack actually told Peyton that he believed the Holy Spirit had set his sights on him, and he believed there was nothing he could do to escape.
It was fitting that when Peyton came home for Thanksgiving, his heart had already begun the long journey homeward to a God who has never stopped loving him. A good Father who has been waiting at the window, looking for him on the horizon. A God who would run out to meet him and restore him as a child and make him His son again.
So, the Sunday after Thanksgiving before Peyton drove back to school, he stopped by my house to see me. That cold November afternoon he found himself on the porch of my treehouse. He was done running. We talked about his heart that had turned away from God. We talked about a God who came near and put on flesh so that Peyton would know that he is loved outrageously, despite his running. We talked about Jesus and the cross and how God the Father made Jesus, who knew no sin, to actually become Peyton's sin, so that he might become the righteousness of God! And as I shared with him the old story of Jesus and his love, he wept and gave his heart to the only One who could change it. He believed in the Christ and received his gift of salvation. The prodigal had come home.
And standing in the treehouse where his friends had boldly asked God to save him, Peyton began to sing the words "What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus." It was beautiful and God gave me a front row seat.
As Peyton drove away from my house that night, back to school, he drove away a new creation. A child of God. The old has gone and the new has come. And his Father went with him. A Father who will never give up on him and never let go. As he pulled out of my driveway I wept tears of joy and this song was playing in my heart.