The Prodigal's Father

There are many deep and astounding and beautiful and encouraging and convicting truths and applications in the parable of the prodigal son found in Luke's Gospel. I have felt the sorrow of that father watching a child go their own way. I have experienced the long wait and the glances down the road longing for the return of one I loved so dearly. But, by God's grace, I have also known the blessed joy that only a parent can know when one who is "lost" is "found." There are many lessons in this parable, not only for the wayward child but for the waiting father.

One lesson from this parable that as a father has often convicted me is why it took so long for the wayward son to return to his father. I wonder why the son doubted so long that his father would receive him back with loving and forgiving arms. It was, perhaps, no fault of the father in this story. I have often wondered, though, whether this is true for me. My own heart is filled with sorrow to think that my children would have cause to doubt my unreserved love. How thankful I am that there is never a reason to doubt God's love for me. One writer said this about this parable:

"In all his wanderings that father's love had never lost sight of his wayward child. It tracked him along all his windings, and waited and welcomed his return. We may doubt, and debase, and deny our divine relationship, yet God will never disown us as His children, nor disinherit us as His heirs. We may cease to act as a child, He will never cease to love as a Father."

What an astounding truth. God's love for His children never changes. We ought to never doubt our Father's love. When we do, we have nothing in the character of God to blame. We can never point to any past unfaithfulness in Him. We can never bring up even one unkept promise. There is never a legitimate reason for us to doubt whether or not, no matter what our sins or condition, that we can return to the loving, forgiving, embrace of our Heavenly Father. I pray that God will help me to be a reflection of His love in the kind of father that I am.
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