The Prodigal Son | Thursday’s Thoughts

I’m starting a new segment today!

I’d like to welcome you all to Thursday’s Thoughts. I felt bad for not posting yesterday, so I decided to invent a new segment for the weeks that I don’t post on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (or for the weeks that I’m feeling particularly inspired). I was pondering what to post, when I heard a very inspiring Word For You Today (daily devotional) on the radio. So I decided to begin Thursday’s Thoughts.

I don’t often talk about God or my faith on here, but I am a Christian, and this segment will be dedicated to discussing something related to God, the Bible, faith, that kind of thing.

Today’s thought, like I said, is based on today’s Word For You Today (Play The Prodigal 2), which you can read here (on the website for my favourite radio station, just saying). I’m basically going to sum it up and say a bit more about it.

The Prodigal Son is a parable about two sons. The elder is obedient; while the younger is rebellious. The younger requests to be given his inheritance while his father is still alive, and runs off and spends it all on frivolous things. He ends up penniless in the middle of a famine, and has to care for pigs. He decides to go home and beg his father for forgiveness and for a job as a servant, because he doesn’t see himself as a worthy son any longer. He goes home, and is promptly greeted by a welcoming father, who showers him with gifts and a party, celebrating because his son was lost and is now found.

This parable is a metaphor for God’s love for us. We are the son, running from Him. But He will always welcome us home. And this Word For You Today taught me something else about this love.

The first thing is that when the son returned home, he must’ve stunk. He’d been living with pigs, for Pete’s sake. And yet his father gave him these amazing robes. That’s like God. He covers our stinky, horrid sins with beautiful robes of love and forgiveness.

The second thing is that the father presented him with the family ring. Back then, this ring was used for official businessy documentation type stuff. It was a big deal. He was showing that he truly accepted the son back into the family. Likewise, God fully welcomes us into His family, as one of His children.

The third thing that I never knew was that only the most established and accepted sons wore sandals in public, which the father gave to his son. This was a sign that he was truly forgiven and loved by his father, and that the father was not ashamed of his son. God feels the same way about us when we come home to Him.

I’ve heard this story hundreds of times, but I never knew or realized these things about it. The father didn’t just welcome his son home by giving him a hug and some nice clothes. He treated his son as the most treasured, most important person, even though he did not deserve it in the slightest. And that is how God feels about us. That just completely blows my mind. He loves us so much. We have turned away from Him and been wallowing with the pigs, and yet He welcomes us home with words of love, robes of forgiveness, His family ring, and sandals of acceptance. He really does love us.

Arohanui,
Tessa Ann