When Someone You Love Forsakes You Part 3

(This is part three of a multi-part article that looks at how you can cope when someone you love forsakes you. I will post each part separately to my blog at  www.inhimalone.com ). 

It is good to weep when someone we love forsakes us. What else can we do to cope with our loss? Continue to love them, even if we must love them from afar, because God loves from afar those who have forsaken Him. 

Here is what He tells Israel through the prophet Jeremiah (31:3): “The Lord appeared to him [to Israel] from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. (NRSV). 

Did you catch that? The forsaken lover – God, in this context – broken by Israel’s abandonment, continued to love them, even from a distance. That’s part of the message of the Prodigal Son. 

The Lord Jesus doesn’t give us much detail about the father’s anguish over his son’s demand. But I think we can extrapolate from what we already know about life and family relationships – as well as the details we do find in this story – how the father grieved over his son’s decision. 

The young man was fed up living on the farm. He was chomping at the proverbial bit to get away from his father’s rules. The young man rejected the life he’d been living and determined to be free – or what he thought was freedom – to do what he wanted in the way he wanted for as long as he wanted. 

So, the father, knowing he could do nothing to change the boy’s mind, gave him his share of the inheritance – and then watched him go. 

Did the father ever stop loving him? Of course not. He always loved his son – although now he had to love him from a distance. I like to imagine the father worked his farm every day with one eye on the horizon, hoping to see his son walking the dirt road back home. 

Loving from afar is also exemplified in the relationship the Lord Jesus had with – of all people – Judas. You’ll find the story in John 13:1-4 –  “Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.” 

You know the rest of the story. The Lord then washed His disciples’ feet, including Judas’ feet – even though He knew what Judas was about to do. And Matthew tells us, when Judas led the soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane, “Immediately Judas went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. And Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you have come for.” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him.” (Matthew 26:49-51). 

Think of it for a moment. Jesus washed Judas’ feet and called him, “Friend” – even though the man betrayed Him for a couple of dollars. Despite it all, as John tells us in those first few verses of this 13^th chapter: “Jesus loved [Judas] even to the end.” 

So, there is another example of how God handles rejection – and who we who follow His steps -- can also deal with rejection. It’s good to weep. It's important to love, even if we have to do so from a distance. 

What else can we do when we’re forsaken?  What other examples does God give us as we follow in His steps? We will look at that in part four.