It’s a Tuesday morning and my alarm goes off at 7:00 am. I go upstairs and eat a piece of bread and a hard boiled egg for breakfast. We read a chapter of Proverbs as a group for morning devo and afterwards it’s time for ministry!
This month for ministry there is a lot of manual labor around the camp grounds. Painting, gardening, plastering, organizing, staining, grouting, and cleaning pig pens are just a few of our jobs. (Dad you would be proud of all the skillz I’m learning!)
One thing you should know is that there are a lot of pigs here. Huge sows, piglets, and everywhere in between. They are constantly being born, raised, and sold. They are so crucial for this camp because they provide food and also income year round.
Having so many pigs around here means that there is a lot of work that needs to be done with them. Usually it’s scrubbing down all the dirt and grime off the walls and then lime washing their stalls so they look clean, fresh, and white. There isn’t much room to move in the tiny stalls with a huge pig or lots of little piglets running around. But in those moments when it’s just me and the pigs I have never felt more like the prodigal son.
In the book of Luke, Chapter 15 Jesus tells a parable where the younger son of two brothers takes his half of his father’s inheritance and flees to a distant country. He pretty much tells his father and family that they are dead to him and he is better off on his own.
When he flees he lives a life full of crazy living until eventually he has absolutely nothing. He’s tired, hungry, and lonely. He has no where to go. He ends up being a farm hand and working with the pigs. For a Jew this is thee worst of the worst. There is nothing more dirty, unclean, or lower than working with pigs.
Eventually he hits rock bottom and has had enough. He breaks down and decides that he is going to go home and face his father. He decides that the best case scenario is that his father will take him back only to hire him as a farm hand on his land. He returns home to his father with so much shame and guilt and expecting the worst. Only to be surprised because:
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Luke 15:20
That’s the best part of the whole story! The father is already waiting. Just patiently waiting for his son to return with open arms. His son ran away, told his father that He was dead to him, and went and lived a life full of rebellion but the father still RUNS to him. That’s God. That is the same thing that Jesus does to us daily. He is constantly chasing and pursuing us. He isn’t punishing us when we do something wrong and He doesn’t turn His back on us when we forget about Him.
“For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate” Luke 15:24
Jesus wants the lost to be found. He celebrates over it. He wants to be someone that you run to. No matter how much junk you have done or how long you have denied God He is always, always, going to be waiting for you to choose Him.
Even if I do smell like a pig and have poop on my Chacos. Jesus still wants to be with me.
