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.