An anxious prodigal journeyed home, practicing his speech: “Father, I have sinned ...” His thoughts raced with the possible conclusions to this long ordeal. “Will dad take me back? Will he speak to me? Will he allow me to be one of his hired servants?” After rounding the final corner and seeing his home in the distance, “he became aware that a man had left the house and was running to meet him. “Who can it be, and why is he running?” He did not remember any servant who ran like this one, and he knew it was not his elder brother -- he rarely ever ran. The one who ran was like his father. He remembered his father’s running when they played games together when he was a boy. It could not be his father, however, because his father was too old to run like that. Thus he speculated until the father was near enough to recognize beyond all doubt. He was astounded that his father ran so fast. But he was more amazed at the radiance of his father’s countenance.”
The stunned son began his memorized speech but his exuberant father didn’t let him finish. Robe and ring and sandals were quickly brought for the shabby son: “Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead is alive again; he was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate.” It was time to party!
As Cox explains, “Jesus meant this to be a picture of God and Ourselves.” It is a story of “our self-willed breaking away from [God] into adventures far from God. In it he has shown us the inescapable consequences of sin.” But in the story we also find that God, with an indescribable longing and yearning [he runs toward repentant sinners!], waits for the sinner to “come to himself” because only “then will he become conscious of his need and guilt and be moved to abhor and confess his sin.”
I have often wondered what it would be like to have a child or a grandchild abducted. Imagine what would it then be like if they suddenly were found and brought home alive and in full health? That sort of over-the-top joy is the joy our Heavenly Father feels when we come home from the far country.
“Father I have sinned.”
“Let’s have a feast and celebrate.”
2005/08/25
Old Books, God and Ourselves, Norman Cox, Part 6
If the prodigal’s confession was not genuine he would have surely added one good excuse. “I have sinned but ...
- you should not have given me the money.”
- I had to get away from my self-righteous brother.”
- I had temporary insanity.”
- the real problem is all of the crooks in the far country.”
But the second part of his homecoming speech revealed his sincerity: “I am no longer worthy to be called you son; treat me as one of your hired servants.” In saying these words, the prodigal evidenced a “complete surrender,” one “without reservation, qualification or equivocation.” He was so desperate that he would willingly accept the humiliation of becoming one of his father’s many servants.
This prodigal experienced the embarrassment of “trudging back home after having made such a fool of himself. He remembers that he once loathed his home. He had wanted only what his father could give.... Equally he had wanted to get away from his father. Now he knows that having his own way was the worst thing that could have happened to him. For it would have been infinitely better to have stayed in his father’s house.” He painfully realizes “the disaster that his self-will has brought him.”
Not all prodigals make it home. For some, the anticipated humiliation is too great: “The pangs of the torturing pain which follow a basic loss of self-respect are agonizing. Not many have sufficient courage to face them. In every possible way they seek to escape. Although God forgives, they cannot forgive themselves. There are thousands of solitary drunkards who drink themselves into unconsciousness every night in an effort to buy a few hours’ escape from the anguish they suffer because they have lost their self-respect.” Returning humbly, brokenly, without excuses to the Father is truly their “one lone star of hope.”
2005/08/19
2005/08/16
Old Books, God and Ourselves, Norman Cox, Part 5.
The run-away son finally came to his senses and limped home -- all he had left was a broken heart and a prepared speech: “Father, I have sinned....” These were exceptional words: “Such confession is rare; such penitence a virtue seldom met. Even in the Bible the words, “I have sinned,” occur only thirteen times. And even these are not all genuine.” Some were insincere. Some acknowledged being caught [e.g. Achan] but showed no repentance. “Only twice in the Bible [David and the prodigal] was the confession followed by action which indicated the sincerity of the confessor, his abhorance of his sin, and his pleas for pardon.”
I must be honest -- I don’t find confession much easier. When I have flung unkind words at my wife and know that my confession can restore peace, I agonize over whether to admit my sin. Though my sin is obvious to both of us, I can’t voice it. Is my voice box frozen? Is this a foreign language I don’t know? A dialect of the English language? Would it help to hire a Professor Higgins (My Fair Lady) who will teach me how to say these words? “Repeat after me: `I have sinned. I have sinned. I have sinned.’”
There seems to be a tendency within all of us to magnify others’ sins and minimize our own. Are you overwhelmed by your mate’s sins? Would you like to confront your best friend with her failings as a best friend? Are you angered by the lack of love from a parent? Step back. Take a minute to raise the mirror in front of your own soul. Ask God to help you see your own culpability in whatever is broken between you and someone else: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; ... See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” God is the only one who can enable me to see and confess my own sin.
The run-away son finally came to his senses and limped home -- all he had left was a broken heart and a prepared speech: “Father, I have sinned....” These were exceptional words: “Such confession is rare; such penitence a virtue seldom met. Even in the Bible the words, “I have sinned,” occur only thirteen times. And even these are not all genuine.” Some were insincere. Some acknowledged being caught [e.g. Achan] but showed no repentance. “Only twice in the Bible [David and the prodigal] was the confession followed by action which indicated the sincerity of the confessor, his abhorance of his sin, and his pleas for pardon.”
I must be honest -- I don’t find confession much easier. When I have flung unkind words at my wife and know that my confession can restore peace, I agonize over whether to admit my sin. Though my sin is obvious to both of us, I can’t voice it. Is my voice box frozen? Is this a foreign language I don’t know? A dialect of the English language? Would it help to hire a Professor Higgins (My Fair Lady) who will teach me how to say these words? “Repeat after me: `I have sinned. I have sinned. I have sinned.’”
There seems to be a tendency within all of us to magnify others’ sins and minimize our own. Are you overwhelmed by your mate’s sins? Would you like to confront your best friend with her failings as a best friend? Are you angered by the lack of love from a parent? Step back. Take a minute to raise the mirror in front of your own soul. Ask God to help you see your own culpability in whatever is broken between you and someone else: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; ... See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” God is the only one who can enable me to see and confess my own sin.
2005/08/12
Old Books, God and Ourselves, Norman Cox, Part 4. The father of the prodigal could thank God that he had at least one good son -- or did he? Though the elder son never left home, “his heart was in a spiritual far country more depraved and more hopeless than the one which ruined the prodigal.” His condition was more desperate because he didn’t recognize his “sinful unworthiness.... Such people seldom do. The older son was as lost in the far country of pride as the younger brother was in the far country of debauchery.
The elder son’s “behavior...proved that the father had two lost sons instead of one.” Though the younger brother revolted “from parental control,” the elder revolted “from parental love.” As a result his hardened heart made him blind to “the depths of his brother’s repentance” and prevented him from rejoicing with the rest of the family.
The apostle Paul observed that “the sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them.” (I Tim.5:24) C.S. Lewis made a similar observation: “A man who makes his golf or his motorcycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as intemperate as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals.”
Am I deceived by externals? Would I rather have the cold-hearted but respectable elder son or the broken, name-in-the-police-report younger son? It’s not a choice I would relish, but the dissipated younger son may have the easier time finding his way back to God. He knows he is lost and that his very life is in danger. The elder son, however, may never find the path to repentance. He had “a negative piety that boasts of the sins it has not committed and is blind to the sins the are destroying it.” He was so filled with his brother’s failings, that he couldn’t see his own.
The elder son’s “behavior...proved that the father had two lost sons instead of one.” Though the younger brother revolted “from parental control,” the elder revolted “from parental love.” As a result his hardened heart made him blind to “the depths of his brother’s repentance” and prevented him from rejoicing with the rest of the family.
The apostle Paul observed that “the sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them.” (I Tim.5:24) C.S. Lewis made a similar observation: “A man who makes his golf or his motorcycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as intemperate as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals.”
Am I deceived by externals? Would I rather have the cold-hearted but respectable elder son or the broken, name-in-the-police-report younger son? It’s not a choice I would relish, but the dissipated younger son may have the easier time finding his way back to God. He knows he is lost and that his very life is in danger. The elder son, however, may never find the path to repentance. He had “a negative piety that boasts of the sins it has not committed and is blind to the sins the are destroying it.” He was so filled with his brother’s failings, that he couldn’t see his own.
2005/08/08
Old Books, God and Ourselves, Norman Cox, Part 3.
Sin can be fun -- as any well heeled prodigal knows: “Credit of all kinds is easy to get. When a man has resources, while some of his inheritance or talent or reputation is still left, many friends are eager to be helpful and kind. They sell him the wine that creates illusions of grandeur.... By flattery they intoxicate his vanity until he is sure that he is of all men most superior.” I imagine Adam & Eve’s first bite of the forbidden fruit was sweet -- it was the aftertaste that sent them scurrying to the bushes.
When a prodigal’s money or the talent is spent, so is the pleasure: “Satan’s salesmen cease to smile and entertain and become his bill collectors. Suddenly a man finds himself stranded with nothing. He is harried with demands for payment. Eventually he reaches despair.” His wild oats have “ripened into famine, his purchased friends into grunting swine.”
Oh, the depths of his humiliation! “This was the most horrible spiritual hell that could ever befall a halfway decent Jew of that day. To work for a Gentile was bad enough, but to feed pigs was even worse.” Feeding animals which the Law said were unclean, would have been a pious Jew’s “ultimate degradation” -- worse than a Gentile being “forced into begging, thievery, or even prostitution.” After soaring “on the wings of godless self-will,” he was suddenly “falling deep into chasms where he is shattered on the hard, flinty rocks of reality.... This is the inevitable end of those who run away from God and try to be God for themselves.”
No parent would want to watch his child reap such devastation. But it may be good news. When a prodigal comes to the end of himself -- his own strength, his own plans, his own devices -- he may be ready to put his life back in God’s hands. Some people only learn the hard way that life’s kicks have kickbacks.
Sin can be fun -- as any well heeled prodigal knows: “Credit of all kinds is easy to get. When a man has resources, while some of his inheritance or talent or reputation is still left, many friends are eager to be helpful and kind. They sell him the wine that creates illusions of grandeur.... By flattery they intoxicate his vanity until he is sure that he is of all men most superior.” I imagine Adam & Eve’s first bite of the forbidden fruit was sweet -- it was the aftertaste that sent them scurrying to the bushes.
When a prodigal’s money or the talent is spent, so is the pleasure: “Satan’s salesmen cease to smile and entertain and become his bill collectors. Suddenly a man finds himself stranded with nothing. He is harried with demands for payment. Eventually he reaches despair.” His wild oats have “ripened into famine, his purchased friends into grunting swine.”
Oh, the depths of his humiliation! “This was the most horrible spiritual hell that could ever befall a halfway decent Jew of that day. To work for a Gentile was bad enough, but to feed pigs was even worse.” Feeding animals which the Law said were unclean, would have been a pious Jew’s “ultimate degradation” -- worse than a Gentile being “forced into begging, thievery, or even prostitution.” After soaring “on the wings of godless self-will,” he was suddenly “falling deep into chasms where he is shattered on the hard, flinty rocks of reality.... This is the inevitable end of those who run away from God and try to be God for themselves.”
No parent would want to watch his child reap such devastation. But it may be good news. When a prodigal comes to the end of himself -- his own strength, his own plans, his own devices -- he may be ready to put his life back in God’s hands. Some people only learn the hard way that life’s kicks have kickbacks.
2005/08/06
Old Books, God and Ourselves, Norman Cox, Part 2. Imagine your son asking: “Dad I want my share of the inheritance NOW. I know that it is normal for children to receive their inheritance after their father’s death, but I don’t want to wait.” Would you cash in your IRA or sell stock to give your son what he wanted? Amazingly, the prodigal’s father did just that. Why give in to his impudence? Cox explains that there “comes a time when fathers can no longer protect their children from themselves.” Dad knew that this boy would have to learn hard truths the hard way: “Far countries always turn out more and more like home the longer you stay there.... People are people the world over. If they cut your throat on Wall Street, they will skin you alive in Hong Kong. If they don’t appreciate you in Podunk where they know you, they certainly won’t appreciate you in Paris where they never saw you before. At home the young son was at least the son of his father. In the far country he was only a foreign yokel ripe for fleecing.”
How many of us have felt the pull of the far country -- a new city, a new job, a new church, a new spouse? I know a woman in a troubled marriage whose friends wanted to navigate her to a destination called Relief. There would be stopovers along the way: Peace, Freedom, New Start, New Husband. It all sounded like the ports-of-call on a cruise brochure (which always leave out some destinations: Sickness, Bad Weather, Cramped Accommodations.) Relief, she believed, would remove her pain; offer a quick solution; absolve her of responsibility. But she discovered that she had been duped -- she was believing the “lies of Satan rather than the harsh but redemptive truths of God.” When she was willing to listen, God showed her that her marriage’s problems were not terminal, that her husband was not solely at fault, that hard work could save her marriage.
How many of us have felt the pull of the far country -- a new city, a new job, a new church, a new spouse? I know a woman in a troubled marriage whose friends wanted to navigate her to a destination called Relief. There would be stopovers along the way: Peace, Freedom, New Start, New Husband. It all sounded like the ports-of-call on a cruise brochure (which always leave out some destinations: Sickness, Bad Weather, Cramped Accommodations.) Relief, she believed, would remove her pain; offer a quick solution; absolve her of responsibility. But she discovered that she had been duped -- she was believing the “lies of Satan rather than the harsh but redemptive truths of God.” When she was willing to listen, God showed her that her marriage’s problems were not terminal, that her husband was not solely at fault, that hard work could save her marriage.
2005/08/04
OLD BOOKS, God and Ourselves, Part 1. As I wrote in my last post, because Old Books have been a staple of my spiritual diet, I plan to share this food with you from time to time.
One of the neglected books I discovered in our church library was a little book by Norman Cox called God and Ourselves. Though the title would never win a contest for originality, the content -- an exposition of the Prodigal Son -- is original and insightful.
The Biblical story (Lk.15) begins with the younger son asking, “Father give me my share of the estate.” Cox believes that apart from the grace of God, this story is the spiritual biography of every person -- “let me have what I want when I want it without any restrictions regarding its use.” The son is like an adolescent, demanding that God “humor his desires” and give him “privileges he does not merit.” He is like the believer who expects God to give him “a dollar’s worth of credit for a penny’s worth of service.”
But what happens when prodigals find themselves languishing in a far country? Though they may pray vigorously, “too many want to be saved in their sin, not from it. Their prayer is for God to give them escape from the consequences of their wrong choices without requiring them to abhor the evil they have chosen.” The judgment of Hosea applies to these rebels: “They do not “cry out to [God] from their hearts, but wail upon their beds.” (14:7) They want liberation, not transformation.
One of the neglected books I discovered in our church library was a little book by Norman Cox called God and Ourselves. Though the title would never win a contest for originality, the content -- an exposition of the Prodigal Son -- is original and insightful.
The Biblical story (Lk.15) begins with the younger son asking, “Father give me my share of the estate.” Cox believes that apart from the grace of God, this story is the spiritual biography of every person -- “let me have what I want when I want it without any restrictions regarding its use.” The son is like an adolescent, demanding that God “humor his desires” and give him “privileges he does not merit.” He is like the believer who expects God to give him “a dollar’s worth of credit for a penny’s worth of service.”
But what happens when prodigals find themselves languishing in a far country? Though they may pray vigorously, “too many want to be saved in their sin, not from it. Their prayer is for God to give them escape from the consequences of their wrong choices without requiring them to abhor the evil they have chosen.” The judgment of Hosea applies to these rebels: “They do not “cry out to [God] from their hearts, but wail upon their beds.” (14:7) They want liberation, not transformation.
2005/08/01
I love old books. Oh, it’s not the broken bindings or the crumbling pages or the under linings of former readers -- it’s their rich content that stirs my soul. I have contemplated making a New Year’s resolution next year to spend one year reading nothing but old books -- books that are at least 50 years old.
My wife is our church’s librarian. Before she took over, the library had been neglected and the shelves had become filled with a lot of uninspiring books. She asked if I would gradually sort through the shelves and help her determine what was worth keeping and what should be discarded. At first, I helped reluctantly. But much to my delight I have found treasures among the debris of bad books. Now I feel as giddy as a child on an Easter egg hunt when I tackle a new shelf. In my next post I will begin sharing some of the delightful books that I have uncovered in my task.
My wife is our church’s librarian. Before she took over, the library had been neglected and the shelves had become filled with a lot of uninspiring books. She asked if I would gradually sort through the shelves and help her determine what was worth keeping and what should be discarded. At first, I helped reluctantly. But much to my delight I have found treasures among the debris of bad books. Now I feel as giddy as a child on an Easter egg hunt when I tackle a new shelf. In my next post I will begin sharing some of the delightful books that I have uncovered in my task.
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