{"id":2095,"date":"2014-11-06T05:31:01","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T12:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2014-11-04T14:41:01","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T21:41:01","slug":"celebrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/?p=2095","title":{"rendered":"celebrate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo\"<\/a>Last year, our son Taylor led his volleyball team to the state finals and lost in the championship game<\/a>. This past Saturday, his team returned to the finals and won!<\/p>\n

I stood at the top of the bleachers most of the match, feeling the excitement and stress a coach experiences in the heat of the battle. After the last point was won, my hands shot up in the air as the celebration began. This was not a premeditated move\u2026 it was an automatic reaction to the joy I knew our son and his team was experiencing. They had quite a year.<\/p>\n

The greatest celebrations are those fueled by love. Jesus told a story to a group of people that needed to know God better. When a wayward son came home after a season of rebellion and sin, a father not only ran to meet him, but he completely forgave him and then poured out gifts and blessings.<\/p>\n

The father invited others to join him in the joyous occasion. \u201c\u2019Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let\u2019s have a feast and celebrate! For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.\u2019 So they began to celebrate.\u201d (Luke 15:23-24)<\/p>\n

But not all were happy. A jealous older sibling only focused on his brother\u2019s wrongdoing. He challenged his father\u2019s mindset and proclaimed injustice. \u201cLook! All these years I\u2019ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!\u201d (Luke 15:29-30)<\/p>\n

The older son did not have the heart of the father. He was not motivated by love. He could not understand that sometimes a father cannot help but celebrate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.\u201d (Luke 32:32)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, our son Taylor led his volleyball team to the state finals and lost in the championship game. This past Saturday, his team returned to the finals and won! I stood at the top of the bleachers most of the match, feeling the excitement and stress a coach experiences in the heat of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2099,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/2099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}