I’ve read the story of the prodigal son, heard it taught from pulpits, read books on it over the years, and I wonder…are you familiar with the story?
When a person tells a story, they tend to center on the hero or the villain, but the sermon or book will have a focus. Timothy Keller puts his attention on the Father who represents God in Jesus’ parable. His book title, The Prodigal God, reflects this focus. (Good book, by the way!)
Others center on the son who rebelled and left the family to pursue all manner of sensuous living only to end up feeding pigs. And let’s face it, when we think of the word “prodigal” we think of the prodigal son, don’t we? I mean Scripture even subtitles this parable as the parable of the prodigal son. So we naturally place our focus on this son.
The third group reminds us of the older son who stayed home and seemingly remained faithful to his father. He was the “good” son who did everything he was supposed to do. Some would argue that this son represented the Jewish leaders, others would say he was the one who truly believed. Still others would say that neither son truly loved the Father…in other words both sons were lost souls.
In truth, we could come to many different conclusions because Jesus had a way of telling a story that turned conventional thinking on its head. First, for the younger son to ask for his inheritance was like telling his father, “I wish you were dead.” Nice kid.
But the more startling part of the tale was the father’s reaction. Why on earth did he give into a son who was obviously going to waste everything he’d been given? That’s what I want to focus on today. Perhaps another day we will look at the rest of the story, but for now, let’s pick apart this one thought brought out in this scene.
We know the storyteller is Jesus and He never wasted a single word. We also know that the father in the story represented His Father, God. Jesus was showing us the Father’s great love for the people He created. To show the story at its most intimate level, He set it in a family. Is there a closer bond on earth than marriage and family?
Of course, you have to imagine that the sons in this story had a mother, but Jesus doesn’t mention her. Perhaps she had already died. I would imagine, as a mom myself, that if this parable was told of us, I would have been having some long discussions with my husband about why sending a son off into the wilds with money that wasn’t yet rightly his wasn’t such a wise thing to do. I mean really. Don’t you think that might be the way many moms would think?
And it’s not like this dad didn’t know his sons. Even if he’d been wrapped up in running his estate, he knew from watching his kids which one would be dependable and which one carried a wild streak. As the tradition of that day would have it, the oldest was going to get the double portion anyway, so the amount the youngest wanted might not have amounted to much. Then again, if the father was wealthy, this kid might have walked away with a lot of gold in his pockets.
Do you ever wonder why the father trusted his wealth to a son he knew would misuse it? He knew the son’s rebellious tendencies. Just the request would have told him that. But he knew his son would waste or squander his inheritance. Yet he gave it to him anyway.
Isn’t that just like God? Most scholars will tell us that the sons were not saved–they didn’t believe and this was a parable of their rebellion and the one coming to faith. And I would agree that is true.
But suppose these sons (Jesus did call them sons, not servants) were believers but the youngest in this story had been lured by things outside of what his father wanted for him. His father lavished great gifts and abilities or in this case money on him and instead of using the gifts (as shown in a different parable), he buried them or wasted them or squandered them on riotous living until he was left empty.
Do we do that? By that definition, and I use it loosely, are we ever prodigals in our actions toward God?
I always thought of myself as a decent Christian. Not to say that I didn’t have my moments of rebellious thoughts and desires, but I was rather compliant and didn’t push the envelope, as they say. But you know? God gave me gifts when I came to know Him as a child. It took me a while to figure out what they were, but I did finally come to realize that teaching was among them and writing was the means God guided me to use the gift.
And most of you know that it took me twenty years before I was ready to use the gift to actually teach anyone anything, which I try to do through fiction. But what I don’t often say is that I was actually a squandering prodigal for about eight years. I still walked and talked like a Christian, and I wanted to please the Father, but…not really. I didn’t want to use the gifts He’d given. So I buried them. And maybe that better fits that other parable about gifts and talents, but I think it also applies here.
The prodigal son wasn’t a prodigal simply because he walked away and lived in rebellion to his father’s will for him. (God’s will for him.) He was also a prodigal because he wanted to do what he wanted to do and he neglected, wasted, squandered (pick your verb) his father’s inheritance.
Like the prodigal, one day God finally got my attention, tapped me on the shoulder, figuratively speaking, and told me that He’d never told me to bury what He’d given. “Dig it up,” played in my head. And with doing that, came the need to repent of holding back on what He’d planned all along for me to do. Like the prodigal, I needed to go “home” to my Father and be willing to use His gifts for Him, not myself.
Are you a prodigal? Even if you have never left home to spend your inheritance in wild living, have you left Him at a heart level? Have you buried the desires and gifts He placed in your heart to use for Him because you wanted to make your own choices?
I daresay there are all types of prodigals and maybe that’s why Jesus gave us three people to express this story. And there are many lessons we can take away from Jesus’ words. But the overarching theme woven in among all sorts of lessons we can learn from this is the one that asks, “Are we, at a heart level, longing to please the Father? Or are we pursuing life to please ourselves?”
It’s a question we all have to face at some time in our lives. And I bet we can all answer that at least in thought and heart. We know what it means to be rebellious.
Perhaps it’s time to let go the prodigal spirit and return to the father as the younger son finally did and say, “Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and against you…”
And don’t you know, our Father won’t even let us finish the sentence before He wraps us in His arms and welcomes us home with overwhelming joy! And isn’t that what we have wanted all along?
~Selah
#prodigalthoughts #livegrace #prodigalgod #heartstruth
