I begin this journey with you as my own journey began, with a piece written ‘way back in the 1800s by George MacDonald, a Scottish preacher and storyteller who wrote from a life of poverty and struggle.

If poetic form and archaic language set off alarms in your head, then skip reading the two stanzas below, and I’ll just give you a summary. MacDonald creates a sad picture of a child living on the streets. The child is actually a child of the king who lives in a palace nearby. The child is unaware of his heritage, but the last few lines urge him to run to the palace; his father, the king, is waiting to welcome him.

This piece made me wonder: Am I living in the streets when I could be living in a palace?

From George MacDonald’s Diary of an Old Soul:

I see a little child whose eager hands
Search the thick stream that drains the crowded street
For possible things hid in its current slow.
Nearby, behind him, a great palace stands,
Where kings might welcome nobles to their feet.
Soft sounds, sweet scents, fair sights there only go —
There the child’s father lives, but the child does not know.

On, eager, hungry, busy-seeing child,
Rise up, turn round, run in, run up the stair.
Far in a chamber from rude noise exiled,
Thy father sits, pondering how thou dost fare.
The mighty man will clasp thee to his breast:
Will kiss thee, stroke the tangles of thy hair,
And lap thee warm in fold on fold of lovely rest.

Ever feel like an orphan living in the streets, scrounging for food, fighting to survive?

Our powerful Father waits for us to come to Him. He wants to give us His kingdom. Yes, we are heirs to everything! The Lord of the universe claims us as His children, not in some faraway future realm, but here and now, in the circumstances of our lives today.

Is it possible to leave homelessness behind and move into a palace as heir to the kingdom? What will your life look like if you claim what your Father wants to give you? How will you live if you are convinced God holds your life in His hands and supplies all you need?

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

Scripture: Eph 1:17 (NIV)