The Prodigal

You will notice that the father never went to seek him out while he was still in that other land and that was because the father knew that repentance has to come from the heart. It would have done no good for father to go and try to persuade him to come home. It had to come from him. As soon as the father saw him coming home, and you can just picture him coming home with his tail between his legs, so to speak. I am sure that he was not striding home with the attitude and the gait that he had when he left. I'm sure that he looked lots different. He came home and his father ran out to meet him. He threw his arms around him and gave him a hug and kissed him. Then he started to tell his story and his father wasn't listening. His father interrupted him and told one of the servants to go back and kill the fatted calf because our son who has been gone and is home again. I just love that story because it is a beautiful picture of the response on the part of God to the spirit of repentance on the part of humanity. In these earlier parables Jesus said, "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth," then He went on to tell this story.

Maybe I'll just tell you, just quickly a little story of one of my own special memories of my own rearing. My Dad, I hesitate to say that he was strict but in a sense when he told us to do something, he expected it done. He did not micromanage our lives at all, and in fact we were given a lot of responsibility as children for our own decisions. When Dad told us something to do, it was expected that we did it and Dad never threatened and he did not put up with a whole lot of foolishness. When I was 16, this one night Dad had bought a brand new Ford pickup, and in our home new vehicles were not very common. Dad asked me to take the garbage to the dump which was about a mile and half way. This was in the pre-environmental days when the local dump was just a cliff that you dumped things over. It was a winter night and pouring down rain, I thought, "Ha, I get to take the garbage to the dump," so I jumped into the brand new truck and went. I backed up to the edge of the cliff and I dumped the garbage then I thought that I would punch it. Well, I did. The road was slick and the truck spun out and the next thing that I knew the back end of the pickup was over the cliff. The pickup was teetering on the edge and I was one sick boy. Here was this brand new truck balancing on the edge of the cliff and it was pouring down rain, dark as pitch and I was about a mile and a half from home. All of the fun had suddenly gone out of life. There was nothing to do but start walking home and, of course, Mom and Dad had gotten worried because it was taking me longer than it should have. Somewhere in the night we passed each other, Dad in the car and me walking home in the rain. I didn't see him and he didn't see me. So I got home and Dad was not there. Mom was there and very quiet. I stood by the fire to warm up a little bit. Then Dad came back in the door and I just knew that I was in trouble. You know what? All he said was, "Let's go pull it out." He had gotten to the dump and found the pickup hanging over the cliff and no Ed around. I think that he saw by the expression on my face that it really probably wasn't necessary to rub it in any further. We went back and I got in the car and he got in the pickup and we pulled it back up on the road and we went home. I expected a thorough dressing down. You know, until his dying day I never heard another word about that, never. I think it was because he saw that it wasn't necessary, that I had learned my lesson and any further correction was unnecessary.

I just like to think of that, how that would have been that day when that young man came home. I can picture very well the feeling that he had. The father saw that further correction was not necessary, all he needed was just to be warmly welcomed back into the home. That is the love of our Father. He does not change His truth for anyone but when we are willing and we are humbled and when we repent, there is no hesitation on His part to welcomed us home. -Ed Alexander 2005