I was running the other day and this song came up on my Pandora station:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asU6FXnHWus

Actually it was a newer version, but the link above is the Benny Hester version of “When God Ran” that I first heard back when I was in college.  It was my senior year and I was in the living room of my apartment with my roommates.  They had turned on the radio and found K-Love, way in its early days before it was a nationwide “thing”.  The signal was not great – Christian music was hard to come by in Berkeley in those days – but it was enough to get the message.  The picture of the prodigal son sheepishly returning home as his father ran to embrace him was burned in my memory.  I often turned on the radio after that hoping that they would play the song again.  I have only heard it a handful of times but 25 years later I still remember it.

God is not soft on sin.  He doesn’t smile and shake His head with a sigh and say “Oh, well, kids today, you know” when we turn our hearts away from Him.  He paid a high price to purchase our redemption.

But Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God leads us to repentance.  I can’t tell you the number of times when I have known I was guilty and needed to repent and I received an unexpected check in the mail or a message with good news … and my heart was reminded that God still loved me.  His conviction brought me to a point of confession (agreeing with Him that my sin was wrong), but His kindness led me to repentance (turning away from my sin and wholeheartedly towards Him).