Thoughts of a Prodigal

When the prodigal son left his father and the place of his belonging, the Word says he ended up "in a distant country."  (Luke 15:13)  It was not necessarily a country that speaks of another nation; instead, it could have been a country as far away as very near to the place of his roots.  He actually went from a land of care to a land of carelessness, a land of respect to one of disrespect, a land of being accountable to a land of squandering.  When he walked out of the gate of his father's household, he left his core and his life started spinning out of control.  

The journey away from is the story of all of us.  Conceived and created by the holy hands of a Creator who in those beginning moments declared us to be His, we started making choices which edged us closer to the gate until we finally decided that life might be better in some distant country.  And so we left, exchanging the clothes of our beginning for clothes that kept us from seeing the holy imprint on our soul which spoke of who we really are and to whom we really belong.  In our journey outside the gate to the distant country we forgot all this stuff that connected us to the One who created us.  

Even as the father of the prodigal never forgot his son, so is it true that our Father God never forgets about us.  He, too, waits at the gate with arms of compassion waiting for us to once again step inside His embrace.  Inside His embrace is where we belong.  When we have traveled and squandered our life in the distant country, we no longer feel worthy to live at home again, but how we feel is never going to keep us out of those arms of grace we do not deserve and love which is unconditional.  No matter how distant the country, when we choose to start the journey home, He is going to receive us.