Turning around

Today’s reading is from Luke 15.

11-12Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’

12-16″So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.

17-20″That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father. (emphasis mine)

The story of the prodigal son. It’s quite famous, but today’s reading struck me in a different way. Most people that know the story are amazed at the father accepting the son back into the fold.

I’d like to focus on the portion I bolded above. How many times have we screwed up, or screwed someone else up with our own actions. How much wrestling did we do with ourselves before we finally said, “ok, I’m going to admit that I’m wrong here.” That’s what the bolded portion above says to me.

The son is saying, “Ok, fine, I realize now I’m a total loser. I can’t stand this lifestyle I’ve chosen for myself, so I need to go back to Dad and tell him I blew my inheritance. I’ll probably need to take some punishment from him, but it’s worth it to at least be fed like a farmhand instead of like a pig.”

How freakin’ hard is that part? The part where you have to humble yourself? That’s the hardest part. The hardest part is looking that person in the eye, and saying, “yep, I screwed up.” We have these preconceived notions that the person is going to lay into us, tell us how much we suck (which we already know very well) and kick us back out.

But, how will we ever know that the person we’re going back to will show us mercy, if we don’t ask for it?

LORD God, give me the same strength and courage as the prodigal son when it comes time to ask for forgiveness. I want to be able to turn around and go back the way I came without shame. I’m going to screw up again, just like I did yesterday, last week, last month, last year. I could go on and on. May they forgive me as you do. May I have the guts to be truthful, even if it feels like a knife to the stomach.

luke 15, courage, prodigal son, jesus, christ, god, faith, forgiveness, forgive

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