Son Of Mine

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the story of Prodigal son...

When I close my eyes I can see him walking up a long, dry dirt road. I wonder to myself what was running through his mind as the dust is kicked up with each step he takes. There is no doubt that this road is soaked with memories from his childhood. From throwing rocks, playing cowboys and Indians with his friends, and building forts. He would run up and down that long, winding road hundreds of times after hearing his mother calling him to come to supper. He knows every single rut, every bend in the road, and every single tree that lines the ditches. But as he walks that same road he has known since childhood, he can't hear his father's voice filling the air, his mama isn't calling him home for supper, and the air is strangely still, probably because no one is expecting him. He knew that it had been a long time since he had last walked down this road. Maybe they had stopped looking for him. 

In the story of the prodigal son in Luke Chapter 15, Jesus tells us that the wayward son's dad saw him coming home from a long way off. I have wondered to myself more than once, what was running through his mind. The mind of a heartbroken father of a wayward son. I have son's of my own and even so it is hard to imagine how I would feel at the sight of one of them, the one whose heart had left our family, walking up the road towards my home, the same road he road his bike in or played football on with his little brother, the road that took him toward his shame. 

The father Jesus spoke about reveals his heart to us in verse 24 when he says, "This son of mine was dead and is alive again." This son of mine. I can't help but notice that this was personal to the father. It is always personal when a father loses his son. The loss that he feels is one only the deepest love can know or understand. The pain is a type of pain only a father can feel. The son didn't know it, but the day he left his family, he took his father's heart with him. 

I tend to forget just how personal it is to the Father when any of His children leave home for a life of sin and shame. Some may call them "heathen," and they may well act the part. Some will call them "lost" because they have chosen to not be found. We say such things because we tend to forget that there was a time when we were lost too. A time when we were on the other side of the cross. A time when we walked down that same road ourselves. 

You and I can never forget how the Father's heart aches when one of His treasures is lost because they choose to travel to a land that they were never intended to go to. When one of His most prized possessions takes up residence in a barren and dying land. It is then that He will go to extreme measures to bring them back. It is during this time, the time when we are the most lost, that we grieve the Holy Spirit. It is only when we come back home, back down the long and winding road we left on, that we can see our Father, not standing in the yard, staring at us, but running towards us. When we start running towards our true home, our Father starts to run back towards us to shorten the journey and quicken the celebration for the lost child has come back home.