Several years ago, my wife Carolyn and I camped near the town of Brimley, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It was a holiday, and we ambled into town for the annual parade. Believe me, it was something to write home about.

There were marshals on horseback, homecoming queens, forest rangers, even Smokey Bear! There was a float featuring Big Bird from Sesame Street, and a flatbed truck carrying a brass band of men and women wearing straw hats and dressed in red-white-and-blue uniforms. There were vehicles of all kinds: tractors, trailers, trucks, and kids on tricycles.

But the last float fully captured our attention. It featured a gray-haired old man kneeling at the foot of a cross. Across the back of the float was written: "COME HOME!" —JESUS

Jesus still calls, "Come home!" You're never too far away or too far gone to come back to your Father's love. He stands waiting, just as the father of the prodigal son did. "When he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion" (Luke 15:20). He rejoiced that his son was no longer lost (v.32).

Come home to God. Don't stay away. No matter what you've done, or left undone, He still loves you.  — David H. Roper