More thoughts on the prodigal son

A little while ago I posted first thoughts on the prodigal son. I was thinking today about the though process of the son that brought him from where he was at rock bottom to the act of moving towards home. On one level, the easiest thing to do is stay at the bottom, no effort is needed. Inevitably though it leads to destruction. Life only comes through the hard struggle to move off the bottom. The son only had hope that there was something better.

Shift to the Father. Remember that the son had essentially told his father that he wishes he was dead so he could gain his inheritance. Yet here was the Father, always waiting for that moment that his son would return. Lost in the story is this detail, the Father runs to his son. To do that he must hitch up his robe, the ultimate act of humiliation for a man of wealth. He removes his clothes and puts them on his son. He takes the tattered rags of his son and gives him something clean and magnificent.

How do you respond to this? There you see the grace of God. The father had done everything he had to do out of obligation in distributing the inheritance. Everything after that was grace, his son did not deserve any of it, yet the Father freely gives. And this God does for us. Gives us more than we expect or hope for, cleans us and restores us. We never once stopped being His sons and daughters. In all of the rebellion and rejection, God kept looking down that road, waiting for his son to return so that he could make all things new once again.