I have to say that this Sunday’s sermon at BACC (given by David Casey, Sr. Pastor) was one of the TRUEST and most thought provoking lessons that I have sat under in a few years.  Maybe it is just because it was SO relavent to my life and recent history or maybe its because so many people just don’t GET IT.  The sermon was based on the scriptures in Matthew 18 – The Parable of the Sheep-

¹²“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? ¹³And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. ¹⁴In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

This was paralleled to the movie Taken.  Just as the man’s daughter, who was HIS… she was HIS daughter.  She was TAKEN from him.  Too many times we are TAKEN from our Heavenly Father by things in this world.  People, heartaches, addictions, idols, these things TAKE us from our Heavenly Father.  But the greatest news is that our God, OUR Heavenly Father… is the ULTIMATE Pursuer.  He will pursue you to the ends of the earth.  So why should we not apply this to our own life?  Why is it that when something is TAKEN from us- Why do we so often sit back and become doormats.  David Casey said that he loves the TV show cops.  You watch these cops and they have the AUTHORITY to burst through a door and TAKE what is rightfully theirs but as christians we have this authority also.

If you think about it… you head down to Satan’s house and politely knock on his door saying “Mr. Satan sir… would you mind to give me back that which was stolen from me?”  NO.  Absolutely not.  All that will earn you is a smack in the face or a roaring laugh.  Now imagine you break down the door and you stand with two or three (Matthew18:15-17) and you proclaim that you have been given authority by the MOST high God and you bind on earth that which should be bound and loose on earth that which should be loosed (Matthew 18:18-19)… and I think you might get a different reaction.

In my own life… we all know how relevant this is.  My husband was MINE.  His heart was given to me to protect and mine to him in trust.  At some point he (for lack of a better way to state it) went crazy.  Truthfully and in every sense of the word… he was TAKEN.  Taken from me, from his children, from his life, from his Heavenly Father.  He was taken and he, like so many who have been taken, needed to be rescued.  He needed a person like the Father in the movie – Taken- who was willing to go after him at any cost.  Its funny because a lot of those few months has become fuzzy to me.  No less painful, but fuzzy.  I am honestly thankful that those things are beginning to slip away.  But I remember so many nights when I lay on my face, in my dining room floor… and I poured out my heart to my Heavenly Father.  Those nights I knew that I was being held.

One day, my spirit rose up inside me.  That same spirit that had been beaten down and belittled.  That same spirit though, which has seen great revivals and knows all too well the sweet Holy Spirit.  I remember sitting down and writing my husband a letter.  I knew that the man I was talking to daily and seeing in my life was not MY husband.  My husband had been taken by this other one who was standing beside me.  See some would look at it that “the nanny” had taken him.  She doesn’t get that much credit in my world.  She never had him… but someone, some THING had a hold on him.

I can remember my hands trembling and tears rolling down my face as I wrote to him.  I told him that he had married ME and promised himself to ME and me alone.  I told him that I would NEVER stop fighting for him, for us, for OUR family which we had created together and that if he thought I was just going to walk away and be the “good divorced” ex then he had another thing coming.  I told him….

Troy Charles Schmidt, who married Amber Michele Teater at a little Chapel named Cardome on August 12, 2000… I am coming for you.   And I did.  I came at him with everything that I had.  Lucky enough for me I had the trump card.  I can honestly say that one evening as I was conversing with God (because really my prayers seem to turn into conversations with God) I know, that I know.. God asked me WHAT I wanted.  I honestly felt like he was asking me… did I want to be done and move on.  Move on to a different life, different career, different husband.  I told him NO.  I want MY husband, MY life, MY WORLD.  I want THIS life… this crazy, stressful, insane life.  It was at that moment that I realized how much I appreciated and loved my life.  It instantly hit me.  It was STILL mine!  Whoever said I had to roll over and accept that “divorce” was inevitable… you were wrong.  Whoever said, “do what’s best for the kids and keep the peace” – YOU my friends were wrong.  And to the very few who said… “You go girl… you fight until you have nothing left”… Thank you.

Because you see, GOD has given us, as his children, authority to TAKE back that which has been taken from us… and to pursue the things that he has laid on our hearts, just as HE has pursued us.

Romans 8:31-39 Instructs us on these things:  ³¹What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long;  we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”^{[l] 37}No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I have to tell you that if you are running from something, from someone, especially from God.  He is coming for you.  Whether you know it or believe it.  He is.  God WILL pursue you.  He WILL find you.  He will WIN.  Because that IS what He does.

As much as it is not a “christian” song … I LOVE the song “You found me” by the Fray.  If you listen to the words it TRULY could be a worship song.

“Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me, Lying on the floor, surround me, surround me,   Why’d you have to wait?  Where were you?  Where were you?  Just a little late, you found me”.  I can honestly tell you that this is EXACTLY how HE found me back in October 2008.  Lying on the floor… surrounded.  I am so thankful for a God who heals, rescues and restores!

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