A modern prodigal!

When my wife and I are asked about any specific situation, my wife will usually reply before I do.  "If you want the facts," she will say, "ask me.  If you want a story, ask Brian!"

I cannot complain!  She is absolutely correct.  I am a storyteller.  However, one of the greatest - if not the greatest! - storytellers was Jesus of Nazareth.  For many of the lessons He taught, He used stories.  For the next few posts, I would like to share some of them, and try to discover their relevance for we who live in the 21^st century.

Perhaps the best-known of Jesus' stories, or parables, is that commonly referred to as the Parable of the Prodigal Son (if you are not familiar with it, then I recommend looking it up – Luke 15).  The word 'prodigal' means 'wasteful', so the title isn't altogether inaccurate.  However, I would suggest that a better title is the parable the Parable of the Loving Father!

If we were to place the story in a 21^st century setting, the younger son might leave home - a very comfortable home in which he even had servants to look after him - and, complete with his future inheritance, set off to be a whizz-kid in the City, working the financial markets. He would purchase a really nice "bachelor flat"; a fast car; trendy clothing; and dine in the finest restaurants. He would throw parties for his new-found friends, and would be the "guy to be seen with" for a lot of physically attractive young women. Then would come a financial disaster, similar to that of 2008!   After that crash, he would find that his credit card was declined; that his bank balance had dropped to nothing; and that his friends no longer wanted to know him.  He might be able to get no more than a zero-hours contract, at less than the minimum wage, doing a job that he hated, and that he felt was below him!  It would be then that he might come to his senses, realise that even the servants in his father's household were better off than he, and decide to go back, apologise to his father, and seek employment in his father's service.

The wonderful thing in the story is, of course, that the father, whom he has treated in such a shabby fashion, should not only accept him back, but give him a place of honour as his son. Indeed, many would claim that the usual title given to the parable - that of the Prodigal (i.e. wasteful) Son, should be replaced by the title of the Loving Father.

That's why the parable is still relevant today.  A parable is simply a lesson in story form.  And the main lesson in this parable is that Almighty God welcomes back men and women, and boys and girls, who recognise that they are not even able to maintain the standards they set themselves, let alone the standards that He has set.  Let's face it, how many of your New Year resolutions are you still keeping?! However, if we genuinely seek God, and accept the salvation that, according to the New Testament teaching, He offers through Jesus and His sacrificial death at Calvary, then we are welcomed back and made right in His sight.

You want to be right with God, the heavenly Father?  Come to Calvary!