God’s loyalty to us

Every day, I marvel at God’s loyalty to His children. God’s faithfulness to us can be compared to this story of a rich man and a crazy beggar;

A rich man sees a crazy dirty beggar on the street, eating from the gutter. This beggar has sores all over him and is ignorant of all that is happening around him. His world revolves around the gutter, the houseflies around him, and the maggots on his sores.

This rich man is filled with compassion at this dirty crazy beggar. He resolves to save him, while saving him, touts attacked him with clubs and sticks, destroying his car, carting away with his wealth, ridding him of his clothes, and beating him mercilessly. The touts saw him as a ritualist trying to take advantage of the crazy man.

Eventually, and stubbornly, he picked up the beggar, hung him across his shoulders and carried him home, wounded and bleeding. He staggered breathlessly until he got to his house where his attendants carried them both in to treat and tender to their needs.

A few days later, the rich man was fully recovered and he kept checking up on the crazy beggar. He was no longer crazy as he was now aware of the existence of a nicer world. Neither was he dirty as he wore the cleanest white garments.

A few weeks later the former beggar was fully recovered and the rich man took care of him like his own child. He treated him the same way he treated his own children, he called him his son, he called him a prince. They ate from the same table and laughed at the same jokes. This was how well the rich man welcomed him. The former beggar was grateful and grew to love him.

There was this game the former beggar used to play when he still lived in the gutters. The game involved him alongside his friends, picking up sharp broken bottles and small stones from the gutters, and afterwards, throwing as many bottles or stones as possible at people’s windows. The winner is usually the first person to break a window. The winner of this game is usually entitled to an orgy-filled party being celebrated in his name, where he is given as many women as he wanted.  These women of course are smelly women from the slums too, with dirty clothes and maggot-filled sores all through their bodies from dirty living. The delicacies of the party are; packets of cigarettes, cheap sweets and hard bread. The men mostly enjoyed the cigarettes and the women; these were the highlights of the party to them.

A few months after living with the rich man, the former beggar missed his old games and friends. He formed the habit of sneaking out of the house to be with his friends. In the middle of one of their games, the police came and arrested them. And the rich man had to come bail him out, because after all, he is one of his sons.

The former beggar is so filled with ignorance that every single day, he kept going back to their dirty old games, and every single time he was in trouble, the rich man kept coming to bail him out. Sometimes, while in the middle of his dirty games, the former beggar called the rich man silly names, just to sound cool before his friends. The rich man knew. But he kept bailing him out. As long as the former beggar trusted the rich man enough and was not ashamed to call on him, he came to bail him out.

This story describes my relationship with Jesus; I being the former beggar and Him, being the rich man. After saving me, I’m still ignorant and keep going back to the gutters. And each time, he keeps coming to bail me out.

I am overwhelmed by God’s loyalty to me. I am thrilled at his faithfulness. He must have a heart bigger that the entire universe, to be loving and faithful to a sinner as unworthy as I am.

How many humans can be as faithful as God? We forgive just ten times, and we get tired. God keeps forgiving thousands of times, and not just one person, he forgives billions of humans all over the world.

God is awesome. Every day, we ought to sit down and reflect on how awesome God is, that way, we’ll get to appreciate Him more, we’ll learn to love Him more.