The Prodigal Son

We all have something in common with the parable of the prodigal son that Jesus told in Luke 15. To one extent or another, we have all run from God, tried to do things on our own. I find great encouragement in this parable that Jesus told to a group of "tax collectors and 'sinners.'" I think this story has spoken to me because of the Father's great and unexplainable love for His son. Sin separates us from God, but possibly just as impacting is that the evil one tricks us into believing that because of sin, God no longer loves us. The core of Jesus' message in this parable, once again spoken to a group of "tax collectors and 'sinners,'" is that there is nothing that will keep our Father from embracing us. Nothing!

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, can come between us and separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

This was a song that was sung at a youth summer camp I used to go to in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. I now sing it to my kids every night I put them to bed. It is an important verse to me, one that allows me to believe that although I have turned my back on my Father, slept in pig sties, allowed pride to keep me from going back for so long to my Father's house, He will, and has, embraced me. He loves me - no matter what. Sin separates us from God, but nothing can put a wide enough canyon between the Father and his son to keep Him from loving us.

Twelve years ago the Lord spoke to me at one of the lowest valleys of my life and brought me out of the muck and mire I had been wallowing in. The evil one still had plenty of footholds in my life, and he has used them to try to bring me down, to return me to the pig sty, but I continue to rest in Romans 8:38-39 - nothing can separate us from the Love of God. The prodigal son was embraced by his Father, just like our Father embraces us. Not with a list of things we need to do better, or after we clean ourselves up, but just the way we are. Jesus tells us that when the son "was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." (Luke 15:20) This is not a picture of a grey bearded Father wagging His finger at us in disappointment, wondering if we are ever going to "get it." This is a picture of a Father who embraces us with love and compassion, excited that we were "dead and are now alive again; [we] were lost and am now found," (Luke 15:24) and begins to celebrate, never burying us with condemnation or shame, tools that Satan tries to use to confuse us about the nature of God. Not only does our Father embrace us after years and years of transgressions, but when we turn to Him, as King David wrote in Psalms 51 after being convicted of his sins with Bathsheba, with a broken and contrite heart, He runs to us and throws his arms around us and kisses us. I'm not even sure if we can fully grasp this radical Love of our Savior for us, but if we can just embrace a slice of it, it can change our world.