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 f...