Skip to main content

The Prodigal God

It always amazes me how Scriptures that I have read a thousand times have truths that I have missed over and over. Recently, I was reading the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). All my life I have assumed that the term "prodigal" refers to the younger son's leaving the father's home. I had always thought that prodigals were people who wandered away. Imagine my surprise when I finally looked up the word and found that it means nothing of the sort. Prodigal is an adjective that means "excessive, extravagant, over the top." The prodigal was not prodigal because he left home but because he took his inheritance and wasted it on wine, women and song. He spent excessively and extravagantly. That is why he is described as prodigal.

That got me thinking. Who is the real prodigal in this story? Yes, the son wastefully threw away his inheritance through extravagant spending. However, I think there is an even more extravagant prodigal in the story. It is the father. Think about it. I have a twenty-five year-old son. Imagine how I would respond if he came to me and said this: "Dad, I'm tired of waiting for you to die. Give me my share of the inheritance so I can enjoy it now." How long do you think it would be before my foot planted itself in the seat of his pants? Yet the father in the story that Jesus tells liberally gives up the inheritance to this ungrateful son.

Later in the story, the father is even more prodigal. When his ingrate of a son returns home with nothing, smelling of the pigsty, the father spots him from afar, hikes up his robes, runs out and embraces his son. Although the son deserves nothing, the father dresses him in a clean robe, puts sandals on his feet and a ring on his finger. He then orders a feast to celebrate the return of this pathetic son. That is extravagant behaviour. This father has been abused by this child, yet he responds with over the top love. His expression of acceptance of this child is nothing less than prodigal.

Now bring those details to the true point of the story. We are the son. Ungrateful, stinky, disgusting in every part of our being. We do not deserve anything from the Father, God. We are rebels without a cause. As the son rightly confesses, we do not deserve to be part of the family. It would be amazing grace for God the Father to even allow us to be slaves on the family farm. However, the Father does not treat us that way. His grace is prodigal. It is excessive, extravagant and over the top. Rather than treat us as we deserve, he welcomes us and makes us part of the family. He forgives us, cleans us up and throws a feast in our honour. My friends - the point of this story is not the prodigal nature of the son. The point of the story is the extravagant, prodigal grace of our God!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Families' Fridays

You Cannot Raise Snowflakes in Jesus’ Name David Prince “What you are describing is not a crisis; it is life.” I find myself making that assertion often as I talk to parents. The parent will describe a situation where someone teased their child, or spoke a harsh word to them, and then ask me, “How should we respond?” Usually, what they are describing is normal stuff that happens between children in a fallen world. I tell them what they are describing it is not a crisis; it is life. Their responsibility is to coach their child on how to appropriately respond. Typically, the parent responds to me with shock and I hear phrases like: “But it hurts their feelings.” “They are a sensitive child.” It doesn’t dawn on them that their child’s sensitivity could be the major problem. Frequently, parents place the blame on other children for their child’s reaction. They position their child as a victim. Focusing on the child a parent has no control over while neglecting and opportunity to t...

Death For a Believer

We picture death as coming to destroy; let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending; let us rather think of life as beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us think of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as the voice of death whispers,  "You must go from earth," Let us hear the voice of Christ saying, "You are but coming to me."   Norman Macleod

Families' Fridays

From Focus on the Family 10 helpful tips for single parents Imagine this: you’re the sole parent for your children. You get them up, get them fed and send them to school. You do the housework, maybe you go to work yourself, you get home and you’re still the only adult there. There’s no one to relieve you. No one to pass the baton to while you take a shower or take a few minutes for yourself. You make dinner and gather the family around the table to eat. You play with them, read to them, give them baths, get them to bed and there’s no one there to sit with and process your day. There’s no one there to laugh with you or pray with you. Instead you keep working. You clean up the house again. You pack lunches for the next day. And you eventually crash into bed, knowing you’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow. For many, this is not an imagined scenario. When you parent alone – whether due to divorce, the loss of your spouse or having a spouse who works away from home for long periods of...