He Was Already Watching the Road
There's a quiet piece of math most of us do without noticing.
We assume the distance between us and God is His idea. That He stepped back when we drifted, and now He's waiting — arms folded, patient in a cold sort of way — for us to make the first move. Get the habit under control. Get the anger under control. Then come back.
So we stay where we are. Not rebellious, exactly. Just... far. Rehearsing what we'd say, if we ever got around to saying it.
Then there's one line in a story Jesus told that quietly takes that whole assumption apart.
Luke 15:20
"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."
Two things move in that verse. The son gets up. The father runs. Most of us remember the running — that's the part that gets preached, and it deserves to be. But read it slower, and there's something sitting underneath the running that almost nobody stops on.
He saw him. A great way off.