February 15th, 2011
Nothing happened.
Ok that’s not true. Today was my day to do the morning devotion. I based it on an entry from my journal back in October, 2008. It concerns the parable of the prodigal son. Many teachings have been made of this parable but I hope that you receive some new revelation from this one.
Journal Entry
October 18th, 2008
God has given me a few more tidbits of wisdom. Halleluia! They are an answer to a frequently posed question asked by critics of the christian faith.
“If God is so good, why is there evil in the world?”
Questions like these are tough questions, but they presuppose that God is to blame. One of the beliefs of my personal faith is that I will not blame God for anything. I choose to believe that God is blameless and that at the judgment when I finally see his face I will understand how pure, innocent and blameless he is of every bad thing that has happened in this world. Moreover, if he did do anything that this world considers “bad”, his actions will be fully justified in righteousness and justice, and whatever his judgment is for anyone’s eternal destination will be true and just. These beliefs are not unbiblical. And in taking this stance, I hope to remain open to any new revelation, not closing myself off with some convenient conclusion that I want to believe in my skepticism.
In keeping with these beliefs I’d like to answer those kinds of questions with a tidbit of wisdom that God gave me from the parable of the prodigal son.
The main characters are the father and his youngest son. The father is wealthy and owns many animals, servants, and much land. One day his youngest son demands his inheritance and, after the father gives it to him, goes off and squanders it in wild living. He becomes poor and when famine comes he sells himself to a citizen to be a servant. As he languishes in poverty and hunger he decides to go back to his father and serve him as a worker, because he knows his father’s workers are well-off. Upon his return and repentance to his father, his father holds a feast and celebrates his son’s safe return and welcomes him back as a son and not a servant.
So what of this story? The parallels to be drawn are these: the Father is God, the people of this world are the rebellious son, and the bad things that happen in the world are the bad things that happen to the son in the parable. Note that if the son had not been rebellious and left his Father’s presence then he would not have fallen into misfortune. As it is, though, the son chooses to stray from his father. What if the father had chased after him? Do you think the son would still have run away? I think so. No matter how much love the Father shows for his son, if he wanted to run away then he was going to run away. I think he would have still run away from his father from his father because he wanted to live his own life. So he leaves his father’s presence and goes out living wildly. Bad things happen. He went broke, hungry, and famine came on the land. Even after hiring himself out he still languishes.
Now, what if, in his suffering, he had cried out, “Father! Where are you? How could you let these things happen to me? Where were you when I needed you? How could you do this to me?” How absurd is that! It was by his own choice that he left his father’s grace; his father didn’t abandon him, he abandoned his father to live by his own rules! So why do we in life, when things go bad, call out and accuse God, when most likely it was our own fault that we end up in suffering?
When the son decides to head back home, the story says that “while the son was still a long way off, the Fathet saw him and started running toward him.” And we see here that no matter how far we’ve strayed, the Father is watching out for us. And we don’t have to make it ourselves back into our Father’s presence. No, all we have to do is turn our hearts back to the Father, and he will come running after us no matter what distance we’ve gone, and he himself will escort us back into his love. Notice that when the son returns home his father welcomes him in fullness of love and celebration. His father did not change at all while bad things were happening to him; the father remained good and loving.
This is a picture illustrating spiritual truths. We know that we are also physical beings and physically we are still in a land that has strayed from God and suffering the consequences of its iniquity. Some in some sense, although we are being led by the Father back to our own land, we are still walking through a land of famine and suffering. But like the Father got up and went out to retrieve his son, so we find ourselves going out and retrieving our brothers and bringing them alongside us and showing them the way back home with the Father we’re walking with.
Instead of asking, “Where is God?” We should be asking ourselves, “Man, where are we?” And we need to realize, as the son did, that we must abandon our wild ways and return to the Father with humility and repentance, because only He has what we truly need. And he will welcome us back with all love, grace, mercy and celebration, because regardless of where we are, His goodness and love are unchanging. He is waiting for us, we need only to run back to him.
Father, thank you for your wisdom that you so lavishly bestow on us. The depths of the riches of your wisdom and knowledge sure is vast, Father, and I thank you for sharing freely. Amen!
On the business side of things… I’m technically not fully funded, I’m remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I’ll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.
