{"id":5064,"date":"2022-03-07T14:37:50","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T19:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/?p=5064"},"modified":"2022-03-07T14:42:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T19:42:08","slug":"the-goodness-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/07\/the-goodness-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"The Goodness of God"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/h6>\n
In fields of clover I stop, look and wait\u2026It\u2019s been a long difficult journey\u2026<\/h6>\n
Just there in the distance I see him\u2026<\/h6>\n
He\u2019s running towards me with arms held out, face shining in the sunlight\u2026a smile as big as the sky\u2026<\/h6>\n
I drop everything I\u2019m carrying and with every ounce of energy I possess I break into a full run\u2026<\/h6>\n
Papa! Papa!<\/em> Two hearts collide as he picks me up and swings me around, we embrace and tears of pure joy flow\u2026<\/h6>\n
It\u2019s been too long, too long since I saw you last\u2026but Papa, I promise, I\u2019m never leaving home again. I\u2019m here to stay with you forever!<\/em><\/h6>\n
The greatest love I\u2019ve ever known was holding me in His arms\u2026<\/h6>\n
Child, I\u2019ve missed you, welcome home!!<\/em><\/h6>\n
Have you ever known a love like this? My birth dad wasn\u2019t in my life growing up. It was complicated. I had a stepdad though he was a good man. I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve ever known the closeness of a loving Father. But I can say that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the love of my heavenly father is more real, more genuine, more faithful, than any an earthly father could have given me. I was listening to the song, \u201cThe Goodness of God.\u201d And I saw the image I wrote above. It kind of reminded me of the prodigal son. But my feeling was of a child who had lived far away from her dad and upon coming back home she spots him in the distance. He had been anticipating her return. He would go every day to that field and watch. He knew that one day she\u2019d return. And on this day fifteen years later she was there. Spiritually speaking.<\/h6>\n
I had run from God for fifteen long grueling years. My papa God knew I\u2019d come home one day, and I did. The life I\u2019ve lived in the last nine years have been more blessed than I can tell you. But I will tell you this, God is faithful no matter what.<\/h6>\n
You are never too far away that you can\u2019t turn around and in an instant be in the arms of your heavenly Papa.<\/h6>\n
I would cry and beg God to help me. But I was in no condition to help myself. So, I ran and ran and ran. Until finally I ran into the arms of my heavenly father. He didn\u2019t reject me. He welcomed me with all the love he has in his great big heart.<\/h6>\n
March 13, 2013, Bob and I were married. This was a true turning point in my life and I\u2019ve never been the same since. God knew what I needed. He knew I needed love. Bob says, he didn\u2019t pray for a wife, he prayed that God would give him greater faith. I guess we both got what we needed. It\u2019s been an amazing nine years and with God\u2019s help we will continue to grow and love each other. We\u2019ll do whatever it is or go wherever God takes us until one day we run into His arms and are finally in our heavenly home.<\/h6>\n
If you\u2019re hurting and searching, if you\u2019re running from something that has caused you to fear and be full of guilt and shame. I\u2019m here to tell you stop running away and run into the arms of your loving heavenly father. He\u2019s waiting every single day for you to come home. He wants to give you an abundant, glorious, victorious, love filled, life.<\/h6>\n
~Marla Shaw O\u2019Neill March 7, 2022<\/h6>\n
Luke 15:13-24<\/h6>\n
English Standard Version<\/h6>\n
The Parable of the Prodigal Son<\/strong><\/h6>\n
13\u00a0<\/sup><\/em><\/strong>Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in\u00a0reckless living.<\/em>\u00a014\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.\u00a015\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>So he went and hired himself out to[a<\/a>]<\/sup>\u00a0one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.\u00a016\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And he\u00a0was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.<\/em><\/h6>\n
17\u00a0<\/sup><\/em><\/strong>\u201cBut\u00a0when he\u00a0came to himself, he said, \u2018How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!<\/em>\u00a018\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, \u201cFather,\u00a0I have sinned against\u00a0heaven and before you.\u00a019\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.\u201d\u2019\u00a020\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and\u00a0ran and\u00a0embraced him and\u00a0kissed him.<\/strong>\u00a021\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And the son said to him, \u2018Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.\u00a0I am no longer worthy to be called your son.\u2019\u00a022\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>But the father said to his servants,\u00a0\u2018Bring quickly\u00a0the best robe, and put it on him, and put\u00a0a ring on his hand, and\u00a0shoes on his feet.\u00a023\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And bring\u00a0the fattened calf and kill it and<\/span>\u00a0let us eat and celebrate.\u00a024\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For this my son\u00a0was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.\u2019 And they began to celebrate.<\/em><\/h6>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In fields of clover I stop, look and wait\u2026It\u2019s been a long difficult journey\u2026 Just there in the distance I see him\u2026 He\u2019s running towards me with arms held out, face shining in the sunlight\u2026a smile as big as the sky\u2026 I drop everything I\u2019m carrying and with every ounce of energy I possess I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8aPxH-1jG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5064"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5068,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064\/revisions\/5068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}