Category: family

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Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son: Becoming the Father

This is the fourth post in the series I wrote a few years ago. In The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen writes that the challenge for him is to become the father. It is a challenge that is full of difficulties. When we look again at the Father in our own stories, we can see how daunting it is.

Our Father is gracious and loving without condition. He gives us many good gifts, but the most important gift he gives is himself. The Father is reckless in giving himself to us. Jesus, who is the image of the Father, gave his very life for us, pouring out his blood for our salvation. We are granted grace and mercy without measure from an eternal, inexhaustible love. There is nothing our Father wouldn’t do for our good.

As children of God, we are called to be like him. When I look in a mirror, I see my dad. The eyes, the facial features, the hair (or lack thereof), the voice, all show whose son I am. The same is to be true of those who are children of the heavenly Father. As God is loving and compassionate, so we are to be loving and compassionate. As God is gracious and merciful, so we are to be gracious and merciful. As God gives himself, so we are to give ourselves. You get the idea.

In my late twenties my life changed as I became a father. Even though I was still a son, I was now a person with a child. That brought a change in responsibilities, and a change in perspective. As we mature in Christ, we are to leave both the prodigal and the elder son behind. We are still in need of fathering from God, but our vocation changes. We are now called to be the father. As I look at the father in the story, I see some things that will be true as we become the father. Nouwen states that the three ways to compassionate fatherhood are grief, forgiveness, and generosity.

We grieve over those who have left home, we grieve over the injustice and abuse in the world, and we grieve over our own weakness. One aspect of grieving is realizing that we cannot save the one who has wandered away. The father in the story didn’t go after his son, but he watched and waited for him to return. So it is with us. Many times, all we can do is pray that God will turn the prodigal around. We can not go into the far country and drag them back. All we can do is wait and be ready to welcome them home.

This grieving makes us sensitive to others who are hurting, and the sensitivity leads us to forgive those who wrong us. As the father did, we forgive without question any and all who return. As Jesus said, we forgive, and forgive, and forgive, and forgive, and so on. True forgiveness also reconciles. The father didn’t say to the prodigal, “I forgive you, but I think I’ll just keep you on as a servant.” He accepted him back as his beloved son. No strings attached.

The third way to compassionate fatherhood is generosity. The father spared nothing to celebrate his son’s return. He gave the best of everything, including himself. We are called to give ourselves to others in the same way. Yes, we may get hurt. I’m sure the father was hurt when the elder son refused to join the party, and I would guess the younger son wasn’t perfect after he was restored. He may well have cause his father more pain. We are to remember the hurt we have caused our Father and the grace he gives us regardless, and do the same for others.

May the Father enable us to be as gracious, loving, and compassionate to others as he is to us.

 

 

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Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son: The Father

The story in Luke 15 is popularly named for the prodigal son, but it could be titled, “The Story of the Prodigal Father.” Prodigal means recklessly extravagant, and I think that describes the actions of the father in the story. Jesus told this story in response to the criticism that he ate and drank with sinners. It is a picture of God’s extravagant love toward repentant sinners.

The father granted the younger son’s request, even though it was a slap in the face. As a father, I can begin to imagine the grief he felt as his son rejected him and everything he stood for. Rather than writing the son off as a lost cause, the story seems to indicate that the father was constantly looking for him to return. In spite of his grief he kept hoping. When the prodigal returned, the father saw him coming in the distance and ran to meet him. Imagine this dignified man running out to greet his son. In those days, one who did what the son had done would be met by the village elders if he returned and officially banished. The father was not only overjoyed to see his son, he was also protecting him.

Before the son could get his speech out, his father told the servants to prepare for a huge blowout party. He covered the son’s rag’s with a luxurious robe, put good sandals on his feet, and a ring on his finger. All of these were things a beloved son would wear, not a servant. There were no words of disapproval or recrimination, only grace and compassion. When the elder brother acted like a jerk and refused to join the party, the father went to him with grace, reminding him that he was also a beloved son. Again, there were no harsh words from the father.

We have the same kind of Father. When we wander away from him, forgetting who we are, he is waiting patiently for us to return. He knows we will return because his Spirit draws us. We are told in Scripture that God’s kindness leads us to repentance. He doesn’t force us back and hold us against our will. It’s grace and love that brings us to him, and it’s grace and love that keeps us home. In the same way, when we think we somehow have to perform to cause the Father to love us more, or think our good deeds mean we are better than our brothers, the Father calls us to remember that he loves us because he loves us. He doesn’t love us any less when we screw up, and he doesn’t love us any more when we do good things.

Sometimes we forget who our Father is, and who we are as his children. God calls us back to him, not as a servant. He calls us back, not as someone who has earned his love. No, the Father calls us to return home, remembering that we are his beloved children. He is ready to welcome us with open arms and celebrate our return.

 

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Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son: The Younger Son

A few years back, I did a series of posts on the story of the Prodigal Son. I watched a Tim Keller video on that story a few days ago, and it started me thinking about reposting the series. So here it is.

Today, I’m starting a four part series on the story of the Prodigal Son. The story of the prodigal is a story of God’s grace to his wayward children when they come home. It is also a story with a number of layers that speak to us in different ways at different times in our lives. Henri Nouwen wrote a book titled, The Return of the Prodigal Son, based on his reflections on a painting by Rembrandt. My ramblings come largely from reading this book.

The first person we encounter in the story is the younger son. This son comes to his father and asks for his part of the inheritance that would come to him after his father dies. This is more than just a request to get money due him earlier than he would normally receive it. The ones who heard this story would have been outraged at the attitude of the younger son. In effect, he was saying to his father, “I reject you and everything you stand for, your culture, your religion, everything. I wish you were dead!” In a culture where rebellious children could be stoned to death, this was a dangerous and devastating statement for the son to make and for the father to hear. The father however, decided to give his son what he asked for. He handed over the money and said goodbye. As a father, I can imagine the heartbreak he went through as one of his sons turned his back on everything and left.

The younger son went off to a “distant country,” where he squandered his inheritance on parties and whores. He was completely deaf to the voice that would have reminded him of his father’s love and of what he had been taught. In short, he forgot who he was. I would imagine that most of us can see ourselves in the younger son in some way. Some may have wandered into a life of dissipation and come out of it. Others may have experimented with some things but not gone all the way in. In my own life, I was drawn in to things that were not good for me, although I never wandered completely away. Of course, there are some out there who would consider me a prodigal today.

There is another way to be the younger son, a way that many, many more have fallen into. That is the way of forgetting whose child we are and trying to get our identity from other things or other people. That is the way I most identify with the prodigal. Whether it’s from a job, a skill, a style, or a group of people, we try to prove our worth by other things than what our Father says. Our culture says that what is important is how you dress, what job you have, what kind of car you drive, how much money you make, or what group you hang out with. Unfortunately, those things become like the husks the prodigal wished to eat while feeding the pigs. Trying to find our worth and identity in any thing of this world is a futile exercise, leading to emptiness.

Fortunately for the prodigal, he did come to his senses and remember who he was. I can see him slapping himself on the forehead, and saying, “What am I doing here? I’m not a pig farmer! I’m a son of a father who has a lot of money and food! Why am I starving here?” So, after coming to his senses he returned home. He still didn’t completely remember who we was though. Or better, he didn’t understand completely the kind of person his father was. His plan was to go home and convince his father to give him a job. He didn’t believe his father would accept him back as a son. We sometimes also forget who we are dealing with when we go to our Father. We believe the lies that we can’t be his child if we do certain things, or that we have to do something to get ourselves back into his good graces. We feel we have to “get right with God.” We forget that our Father loves us and always accepts us.

The son returns and finds himself in the midst of a homecoming better than he could have imagined. He can’t get his prepared speech out before his father welcomes him back and throws the biggest party the neighborhood has ever seen. So it is when we come to our senses and remember who we are. We are beloved children of the Creator of the universe. He is pleased with us, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to cause his love to decrease, and nothing we can do to increase his love. He holds us in his hands and nothing can pull us out. Period.

Remember who you are. If you’ve forgotten, your Father is looking for your return so he can lavish his grace and love on you.

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A New Bend in the Road

A little over twenty seven years ago, we moved from Cincinnati to Rock Hill, South Carolina. At that time we said that we were never moving again. Famous last words! We have just moved into a new house. The house and yard had become more than we could handle and we decided we needed a smaller place. Added to that were some repair issues that had become expensive due to a plumbing mishap. Did I mention that I hate plumbing?

After a few months of sort of looking, but sort of not, we got serious and put our house on the market. Knowing that we were looking for a smaller place meant that we had to let a lot of things go. We began to look at all the stuff that had accumulated over the years. I had inherited the “maybe I can use this someday” gene from my father, so there was quite a bit. The challenge was to pare the things from a 1500 square foot, three bedroom. two bath home with a dining room, garage, back patio, shed and a half acre yard down to where they would fit into an 850 square foot, two bedroom, one bath house with less than a quarter acre lot.

I made numerous trips to charitable organizations and to our county’s waste/recycling center. Facebook Messenger became our friend. It was hard to let go of many of the things, especially furniture. Fortunately, we made some money from selling much of the furniture and a great deal of it went to people who would get good use of it. One couple bought a dresser and were going to donate it to a local women’s shelter, and we sold a rocker and footstool to a couple that was expecting their first child. That was a blessing to us. Our son and daughter-in-law, and daughter and son-in-law have been an amazing help with the purging and the planning.

We moved into the house the week after Thanksgiving. I have again made numerous trips to recycling and charitable places. As it turned out, we used a lot of cardboard boxes and also had to do more downsizing. It’s been a busy week and a half, and there is still furniture to put together and positioned, art to hang, and stuff to put away. I’m going to hold off on the yard until the spring.

It was hard to leave a place where we made so many good memories. Fortunately we can carry those memories with us and we will make new ones. We are closer to our church community, and to many other places and activities we have been a part of. The move has been stressful at times, and there were even a few times when I wondered if it was worth it. At those times, I could sense the Father saying, “I got this.” Jan and I are looking forward to getting to know our neighbors and learning to love them well, and to what lies ahead of us on this part of the journey.

We’re not moving again. I guess I shouldn’t be saying that should I?

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Blast From the Past: Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given, Part 4

In Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen writes about the four words that helped him identify the movements of the Spirit in his life. Those words are, taken, blessed, broken, and given. In previous posts I have looked at the first three. Today, I want to look at the fourth word.

As followers of Jesus, we are to be bread for the world. As such, we are taken (chosen) to be blessed. We are blessed so that we may be broken. We are broken so that we may then be given. The chosenness, blessedness, and brokenness are not just for our benefit, although we do gain from it. These things happen to us so that we might be a blessing to others. The communion bread is given for the benefit of others. It is to be the same with us. We do not live for ourselves, we live for others.

Jesus commanded us to love others as he loved us. That means we are to lay down our lives for others. We are to live lives of sacrificial love. Ephesians 5:1 & 2 calls us to imitate our Father by living a life that is characterized by the same love that he showed to us. The Father’s love for us is a giving love. Abba loves us simply because he loves us. He gives us his grace regardless of what we do. We are his beloved children and he is pleased with us. Therefore, he loves us.

We are called to that same love that gives. If I do something for someone with an expectation of something in return, I am not showing love. That is a lesson that can be very difficult to learn, but it is necessary. Nouwen states that we find our greatest fulfillment in giving our self to others. I think he is right. After the fulfillment we find only in God, our greatest sense of worth comes when we are able to show God’s love to another individual. We can see this sense of fulfillment in those who don’t know Christ yet give to others.

This giving must be a conscious, deliberate thing. It is not going to happen automatically. We must determine day by day to give ourselves away. We can do this as we embrace being chosen by the Father, being blessed by him, experiencing brokenness, and realizing that all of this is so that God can give us to others. Paul writes that it is Christ who lives in us. It is Jesus who empowers us to give ourselves.

The giving can take many forms. It can be helping someone move, or repairing something around their house. It can be having them over for a meal. It can be something as simple as just spending time with someone and really listening to them without judging or trying to “fix” things (That’s hard for some of us). It doesn’t matter what form the giving takes as long as it is done for the good of another without expecting anything in return, simply because we love the other person. Being in community with other believers and sharing our lives with them will teach us to give, and to receive, as we interact as brothers and sisters.

As we live a life of sacrificial love, we can even give to others in our death. Our legacy can inspire others to give themselves as they remember the love that God showed them through us. A few years ago, a commercial for a pizza brand asked, “What do you want on your Tombstone?” A good thing for a Christian to be able to have on their tombstone when they die would be, “He showed us Jesus.” That would sum up a life lived as one taken, blessed, broken, and given.

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Blast From the Past: Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given Part 2

In Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen writes of four words that helped him identify the movements of the Spirit in his life. In the first post I looked at the idea that we are taken by the Father. Today, we’ll look at the concept of being blessed.

As those who are beloved of the Father and chosen by him, we are blessed. We are not only blessed in the sense of having our sins forgiven and being at peace with God, but we are also blessed in the sense that God says good, true things about us. Our Father tells us that we are his beloved children, that we are adopted into his family and have all the benefits of heirs. We are in Christ, therefore we are co-heirs with Jesus. God tells us that he will always take care of us, that we can trust him to do nothing but good. While that good may not look wonderful to our eyes, we can know that it is truly good.

In a world that is full of curses and lies, we need to hear the truth that we are blessed. First, we need to hear from our Father. We do this by prayer. Not just talking to God, but also listening to him. It is hard to tune out the noise of the world around us and the lies whispered to us by our Enemy. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the voice of the thief who can disguise himself as an angel of light, and the true Shepherd who gave his life that we might live life to the full. Being still and learning to hear the Shepherd’s voice is vital in our walk with him. Whether it’s a few minutes here and there, an hour, or a day, we need to carve out time where we simply are still so we can know that he is God.

Another way we can hear the blessing from the Father is to cultivate presence. We normally go through our day-to-day with tunnel vision and miss the many blessings Abba brings our way. Some of those come directly from heaven, some come through other people. When we realize those blessings, we need to receive them and show gratitude. Sometimes receiving blessing from another is humbling. It forces us to recognize that we really do need each other. Unfortunately, this is as true in the church as in the outside world. We want to appear strong and able, so we tend to pooh pooh times that someone has met our needs and forget that we have been truly blessed. Many times, the simple presence of someone in our lives is a blessing that we miss.

Through these two ways we recognize and claim our blessedness. We are not blessed just for our sake though. The Father blesses us so that we will bless others. Claiming our blessing will give us a desire to bless those we come in contact with each day, from the brother or sister who needs help, to the cashier at the grocery store who is tired at the end of the shift. In a world that is full of curses and lies, people hunger for blessing whether we realize it or not. Jesus commanded us to love others as he loved us. As we are forgiven, we are to forgive. As we are shown grace, we are to show grace. As we are blessed, we are to bless.

We can only bless others as we tune out the noise of the darkness and listen to the voice of our Father and claim our blessedness. Then, as Nouwen states,

“…we can face our own and others’ brokenness with open eyes.”

That’s a topic for another time.

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Blast From the Past: Taken, Blessed, Broken Given

This is part 1 of a four part series first published ten years ago.

At the camp I drive for during the summer, we hold a weekly study for the staff. This summer we are looking at Life of the Beloved, by Henri Nouwen. In this book, Nouwen writes about four words that have helped him identify the movements of the Spirit in his life. Nouwen’s idea is that as followers of Jesus we are bread for the world, therefore we are taken, blessed, broken, and given, as the bread during communion. As I read the explanation of these words, I am finding them helpful in my own walk. In this four part series, I am going to share some of  my thoughts.

The first word is taken. You could substitute the word “chosen.” We are chosen by God to be his beloved children. He has become our Father, and he is pleased with his children. As Nouwen states:

“Our preciousness, uniqueness, and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time — our brief chronological existence — but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity.”

Unfortunately, we live in a world that tells us that we are nothing, that there is nothing special about us. Those voices bombard us constantly, from advertisements that tell us we must have the latest (fill in the blank) in order to be happy and fulfilled, to preachers who tell us how far short we fall and how much harder we need to work. Those voices do not come from our Father. They come from our Enemy who seeks to steal our joy, kill our spirits, and destroy our lives.

Nouwen gives three ways we can stay in touch with our chosenness. The first is to keep unmasking the world around us for what it is. The world is full of manipulation and destruction. It’s prevailing wisdom is to step on anyone and everyone in the climb up the ladder. When we feel hurt or rejected, we should recognize those feelings, but also recognize that they are not the truth about ourselves. The truth is that the Father loves us with an everlasting love, and has chosen us to be his children.

The second way is to look for people and places where our chosenness is affirmed. These people and places will not be perfect, but as Nouwen writes,

“The limited, sometimes broken, love of those who share our humanity can often point us to the truth of who we are: precious in God’s eyes.” 

We need each other, and we need to affirm in each other the precious, beloved children that we are.

The third way is to celebrate our chosenness constantly. We are to be grateful to the Father for choosing us, and grateful to those who remind us of our chosenness. We need to be careful, because occasions for gratitude can also be occasions for cynicism, for questioning motives, even for bitterness. We must guard against this and consciously choose to be grateful.

 Rather than making us feel superior or more favored, claiming our chosenness will give us a great desire to help others recognize and claim their chosenness, their place as a beloved child of the Father. This is another reason we need to be in community with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can build up and encourage one another as we gather together as God’s chosen, beloved children.

One final thought from Nouwen:

” It is only when we have claimed our own place in God’s love that we can experience this all-embracing, noncomparing love and feel safe, not only with God, but also with all our brothers and sisters.”