Just Come Home!

A father’s heart… the most powerful son-returner ever!

 

This ‘guest blog’ was written by my brother Randy Walterman. Read it and relish in the incredible love of our heavenly Father!

I have been re-watching a show from 15 years ago called “Crossing Jordan”. It’s about the medical examiner’s office in Boston. Since it’s fiction – the autopsy doctors not only find out how people died; they solve crimes, too.

Unrealistic, but fun to watch. On one show the chief medical examiner was having problems with his 20-year-old daughter. She had made a mess of her life for years. She was into drugs and alcohol. She had run off with her boyfriend and was not answering her cell phone. Then the father found out that her boyfriend had just been found shot to death. So, now the girl was perhaps in grave danger. The father dialed her cell phone again. As he prepared to leave a message, I thought to myself what the message would be that any of us parents would want to say to our wayward child, “I don’t care what you’ve done. Just come home.”

Home! If you are in danger, I’ll protect you. If you are sick, I’ll bring you back to health. If you are running, just stop. Come home. Come home.

Every parent voices that same desperate cry to their runaway child, Come home. This is not the time to explain all their failings and bad decisions. Not a time for lectures and “I told you this would happen.” Just come home.

Jesus told a story in Luke 15. He set the stage by telling His listeners about losing a sheep. Then He spoke about losing a coin. But the story that speaks to the heart of every parent is the final story about losing a child. We all understand the horror of any parent losing a child. But in this story the pain has an extra twist. THIS child CHOSE to leave. In a rejection of everything the father had taught him, he chose to turn his back on his father. All that the father stood for. All of the father’s hopes and plans. All of the father’s dreams. Rejected by this son.

Some preachers might make a big deal of what the King James version calls – “riotous living”. Basically, you can put a whole lot of things in that phrase “riotous living”. It could be sex. It could be drugs. It could be homosexuality. It could be crime. And it could even be bitterness and anger. It could be unforgiveness. We humans are vastly inventive when it comes to ways of separating ourselves from God.

But this is not a story about bad things we may do. It’s not a story about broken lives. It’s not even a story about repentance. It’s a story about a father, a father with an unbreakable love for his child. “I don’t care what you’ve done. Just come home.”

There is not a word in this story about untangling a life gone wrong. Not a word spoken asking for an apology. Not a word of condemnation. This was not a story about fixing bad decisions. This was a story about a father.

At the end of a bad path, filled with choices that keep sucking you in deeper and deeper, there is a Love that you can’t outrun. You can’t out reason. You can’t defeat. And you can’t outlast. It’s a father’s love.

They say that a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. So, this child turns his face towards home and takes the first step. But he didn’t know that the moment he took that single step, His father began to run. He began to run to his son. I know that our Bibles say that when the father saw his son afar off, he began to run to him. We think of that as when the son got close enough to be seen by natural eyes. But THIS Father we speak about was not a human father with human limitations. THIS Father had NO limits to His ability. He saw his son miles and miles away, right in the pig pen of sin. And so, with the son’s first step, the Father began to run. “I don’t care what you’ve done. Just come home.”

In church we speak a lot about right and wrong, about sin, about judgment, about consequences. And we should. But this was not a story about bad living and getting the
horrific results of wrong choices. This is a story about a father, desperate to be reconciled with his son. The son had done a lot of bad things. But the very worst thing he ever did was to separate himself from his father.

Amazingly, the elder son was more upset about his brother’s offences than the father was. The father easily dismissed all the wrongs done to him. No groveling demanded. No list of moneys to be repaid. No penance. No probationary period. Just full acceptance.The apostle Paul caught this understanding when he said that the GOODNESS of God leads to repentance. And so, the father overwhelmed the undeserving son with mercy and kindness.
That’s what a father does. That’s who a father is.

Because this is a story about a father.  And a father’s love.

Follow Randy’s writing on his Facebook page.

Tags: , , ,

One Response to “Just Come Home!”

  1. WordPress › Error

    There has been a critical error on this website.

    Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.