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.”
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