Tuesday, March 1

Tuesday

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.  After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.  So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.  He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.  “When he came to his senses, he said,  ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!  I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’  So he got up and went to his father.  

                                                                                                                    - Luke 15:13-20a

When Jesus says that this younger son set off for a “distant country”, he is telling us something very important about this boy’s heart.  The term used for distant country means that he went so far from home that he was a stranger in that land.  Why didn’t the son just go to the next village or the nearest town?  If he didn’t leave the region, he would still be known as his father’s son, and he wanted to get as far away from his father, his family and his faith as possible.  He wanted to be in a place where nobody would know him and there would be nothing to remind him of who he was or where he came from. 

When we leave home (spiritually) and run from God, our natural inclination is to avoid contact with people and places that will remind us of it.  A friend once told me that during a period of spiritual rebellion in his life he actually stopped going to a particular coffee shop in the morning because he knew that the pastors often hung out there and he didn’t want to face them. 

Have you ever avoided a person or place (even church) simply because you didn’t want to be reminded of what you knew in your heart was wrong?  When we do this, we are actually cutting ourselves off from the very things that God may use to bring us back, but some of us just have to learn the hard way. 

We don’t always see it at the time, but the road (all roads) away from home always leads to brokenness, pain and despair.  Many commentators have called this passage a description of the younger son hitting “rock bottom”.  Clearly this kid is in bad shape.  He is in bad shape financially because there is a severe famine, i.e. a terrible economy, and he has spent everything he had.  He is bad shape physically because he is starving to death.  He is in bad shape relationally because “nobody would give him anything”, apparently he has no friend willing to help him at all.  He is in bad shape spiritually & morally as well.  His association with the pigs is a significant indication of how far he has fallen.  To a Jew, pigs were unclean animals and no self-respecting Jew would go near a pig, let alone touch them or handle their slop!  

I once asked a man I know who has been in a recovery program how someone knows if they are at rock bottom and ready for help.  He told me that a person who is at “the bottom” is not asking the question, is this rock bottom for me?  They know!  

Sometimes this happens to us like this younger son, through the severe external consequences.  But sometimes we come to the bottom in more subtle and internal ways.  I think it is even possible to come to the bottom by reaching the top.  It is not at all uncommon for a person to achieve great wealth and success and find that it is empty and meaningless.  However we get there, reaching the bottom means that we come to the end of ourselves and we recognize our desperate situation and our great need for our Father!  While this is usually painful, ultimately it is a good thing, because it is often at the bottom that God meets us and begins to restore us.  In fact, I have known parents of prodigals who, instead of praying for their child to be protected from pain, have actually asked God to bring them swiftly to the place where they recognize the path they are on, pain and all.

Father keep us from leaving home, but if we do wander, bring us swiftly to the painful place where we recognize our sin and return to You – Amen.


Jeff Frazier