Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Heartworn highway

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Luke 15:31-32
The father said to his eldest son, "My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice because your brother was dead and now he lives; he was lost and now he's found."

The older son is so angry. There is no gratitude or grace in his response to his brother's homecoming. His father might be generous beyond expectation (prodigal, that is), both to himself and his brother, but perhaps he has grown accustomed to this. Slightly bored in his sense of entitlement, he suspects nothing as his resentment creeps up into him.

So both sons unhappily leave their father, and pursue their own way. What son hasn't? And what father hasn't wept, standing at least figuratively in the road, longing to see his son again? Parenting is hard, second only in difficulty to growing up.

Henri Nouwen helps me see how all three characters are ... me. I resent God's generosity, because it gives him power "over" me. So I leave and seek my own way, which doesn't turn out so well, so I return repenting and remorseful. I take God's generosity for granted, and expect him to treat me well because I am "faithful" to him. Then nothing he does is ever enough, and I am jealous of what he does for others.

Out of repentance for my rebellion and rekindled gratitude for what I once took for granted, I can learn how to be a father. The father knows how bad his sons can be and loves them anyway. In his Return of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen says, "People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it ... They point each other to flashes of light here and there, and remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real presence of God."

Jesus told his listeners three stories in this passage, stories about lost sheep, a lost coin, and the lost son. Jesus trusts God to search the hillside and search the house to find what's lost. And then wait out on the highway just in case his lost son might be coming home.

Nouwen says, "My trust and my gratitude reveal the God who searches for me, burning with desire to take away all my resentments and complaints, and to let me sit by his side at the heavenly banquet."

Jesus says my Father "burns with desire" just to be near me. Wow! Spend some time with THAT today.

Bless you, bless you, O my soul, bless your holy name. You pardon my sin, you bring healing to my bones, you redeem my life from destruction. O Lord, you crown me with kindness and compassion, and stir my soul. So high is your kindness as the heavens are high above the earth. So far have you put my sins away from me as the east is from the west. And your goodness endures forever. (from Psalm 103)

Devotions Archive

Heartworn highway

Saturday, February 27, 2016