A Bushel and a Peck and a Hug Around the Neck. . .

There is an old nursery rhyme that I used to sing to my very young children and it went something like this:  "I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.  A hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap, a barrel and a heap and I'm talking in my sleep about youuuuuuuuu."  And when I would sing 'youuuuuuuu' I would tickle the pants off them and we would laugh and laugh.

Sometimes the most impacting and profound teachings come to us in the simplest of packages.  For example, we can talk about love, and being loved all we want--we can explicate its intricacies and extrapolate implications, but you really don't understand love until your little bundle of joy, your small son or daughter, comes running at you with reckless abandon and they jump up, wrapping their arms around your neck and say 'I love you daddy!'

Yeah, that kind of blows theology right out of the water. . . .

Don't get me wrong, God gave us minds to use wisely and it is appropriate that we wrestle hard with the deep truths of God.  But it is also true that we do come to the end of our understanding, and sometimes we would do well to simply admit that there is more going on than we can fully explain.  And that's ok.

God knows this about us, and I believe He goes to great lengths to show us this is true.  No where is this more clearly seen than in the story of the Prodigal Son.

In Luke 15:20 we read a stirring account of a Father's love for his son: 'But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.'

This father loved his son so much that he was willing to throw out convention and protocol, his pride and position, and simply ran.  He ran toward his son, even when the son was a ways off.  And, get this, when he got to his son the very first thing he did was throw his arms around him!  No dialogue, no explanations, no evaluation of motives or decisions made--just plain love.

It reminds me of a nursery rhyme I once heard, and experienced with my kids. . . .

Do you know that this parable is meant to show you that this is exactly the way that God the Father feels about you?  It may be hard to imagine GOD running after you, to think of HIM as desiring you, to imagine the FATHER as one who would see fit to run straight past all the maneoverings of language and throw his arms around you simply because of His love for you.

Maybe that's the most profound statment that could ever be made.

God loves you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.  I like this in that it gives us a sense of God's playfulness and His desire to express a love that does not get bogged down in rationality's fortresses.  Instead, it seeps into our bones when you feel those arms actually there and you begin to really know that it's true--God loves me.  ME!

In reality, God loves you much more than a bushel and a peck, but saying that He is hugging you around the neck--well, that's right on the mark as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe you need to hear that today. We probably need to hear that every day, because we get too easily caught up in our own sin and it prevents us from seeing our Father running to us from a distance--but He is running, running to us.

Isn't that a wonderful thing?

BT