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Click here to read some versions of the Story of the Prodigal Son.
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Click here to see Rembrandt's painting: The Return of the Prodigal Son.
The Younger Son
I am the ‘Younger Son.’ At times, my identity is interwoven with the characteristics that so readily possess him. Like the younger son, I am also ‘deaf to the voice of love’ unable to hear God speaking to me. ‘The hidden places of my inmost being’ is exactly where I desperately need to hear God speaking to me. I need to experience God’s love and truth the most here, because it is the places where I hold my darkest secrets, the ugliness of my heart, insecurities, and my self-lies. It is my hidden places that attempt to drown God’s voice and consume my outer life.
My hidden places suggest that I must be someone better and do something greater. I deny myself the love, grace and freedom I readily give to others, and that God desires to give to me. In loving freely and feeling that I had received love and favor, I have often been unexpectedly rejected. Although the rejection usually occurs out of the internal issues of my friends, it leaves me reeling, feeling failed and inadequate. As I ponder this aspect, I wonder when I ‘left home.’ Was it in the midst of these friendships or afterwards? Like Nouwen, was I simply drawn by a love-hungry heart?
A net of needs and wants quickly tangles me as well, and I no longer can discern my own motivations.[1] My heart becomes clouded and my mind constantly battles itself losing my inner freedom and increasing my paranoia, until I wonder if “anyone ever really loved me,” or if I am even capable of being/receiving love.
I’ve set myself up, dug myself a spiritual and emotion pit. There truly is nothing I can do, but to accept, surrender, and call out to my rescuer. I know that as I dig my pit, I need to stop. I am losing my deepest self, and yet, I seem incapable until I am at its bottom. My humility complete, God sweeps in. He has lowered Himself to pull me upwards to Him. He graciously holds me close so I can feel the love of His presence, quieting me, capturing me, and restoring me. Only the luminous beauty of God can combat my dark ugliness. God’s grace is always greater than my failings.
Thus, I am faced with total, absolute forgiveness. Forgiveness is a challenging principle to extend to others and accept for one self. Our human bent towards justification makes it more difficult to understand the abundance of grace and freedom when extended to us. Our minds can not calculate the immeasurable, undeserved grace and forgiveness God bestows upon the repentant. It is difficult to fathom that we did not nor can we earn it, but is freely given to those who weigh the costly sacrifice of Jesus Christ as their own atonement.
“One of the greatest challenges of spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness. Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing.”[2] I need to release the things that lure me away from my Father’s home, embrace the forgiveness He so readily holds out to me, and surrender completely that I can receive the healing, restoration, and renewal He desires to work in my life. The only place that I can truly experience this is at the heart of my Father, my true home.
[1] Nouwen, Henri. "Return of the Prodigal Son." Page 47
[2] Nouwen, Henri. "Return of the Prodigal Son." Page 53
