October 26, 2026 Devo

One day when I was in high school, I was shooting baskets with a good friend of mine. As we talked, I mentioned our pastor’s sermon from Sunday on the Prodigal Son and how much I liked it. “I didn’t like it,” my friend said. It caught me by surprise. “Why not?” I asked. He frowned and said, “Because the pastor said God is like a father. Do you know what a ‘father’ means to me?” I did. My friend came from a home where he was treated abusively by both his mother and his stepfather. They were alcoholics. And they were mean.
We do that sometimes, don’t we? We see God through the lens of what we know or what we’ve experienced. If we’ve been mistreated and abused by our parents or other authority figures in our lives, it’s easy to believe that God will be the same. If we’ve been abandoned by others, especially in difficult times, it’s easy to assume that when things get hard, God is leaving us, too. Or if we were ignored, or grew up in a place where we weren’t given a voice or no one paid attention to us, why would we believe the King of the Universe would listen?
But this is why our passage today is so important. God reminds us of a truth we don’t always understand. He is not human. He is not like what we have experienced. He is altogether different. As God talks about how disappointed He is with Israel, He affirms that truth. “For I am God, and not a mere mortal.” Israel is certainly going to suffer for the choices they have made, but God is not going to unleash His fury on them as another king or ruler would do. He will let them learn their lesson and then do what most humans don’t do. He will give them grace. He will bring them back. He will restore them to Himself and to the land they have been exiled from. The opening line of our passage reveals His heart for them: “My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows.”
Someone needs to hear this today. God is not like the people in your life who have hurt you. God is not just “a” father. He is "The" Father. The Perfect Father by whom all other fathers are measured. God doesn’t just “tolerate” you. He is wholeheartedly in love with you. A love that never quits. A love that never ends. A love that never gives up. And even if every person in your life has abandoned you, God never will. Just like with Israel, in your darkest moments, in your times of greatest failure, on those days when YOU don’t want to be around you, God is always there. God isn’t like all the other people we’ve known. He’s the One we’ve wanted to know. The Father, Friend, and Companion we’ve always dreamed of. That’s God’s Word for you today.