I have always loved the idea of a father running to meet his runaway boy. I imagine it this way: not only did he sprint to meet him, but he waited for him, watched for him, grieved for him, worried about him, lost sleep, and aged, thinking about the trouble his son might have been in.
After waking up one morning and seeing the waste and ruin of his life, the younger son came home. His speech, prepared ahead of time, based on what he perceived his father’s reception would be, convicted him. The prodigal deserved condemnation and judgment. After all, his father had no idea where he had been or what he had done. So he tried to spare his father the details and hide the life he’d lived, ashamed, simply saying, “I have sinned against heaven and you.”
But when his father reached him, the boy barely even got that first sentence out before his father began to bark orders—not at the son but toward the servants. “Bring a robe. Let’s party. We need food and lots of it.” It only took that small confession to get the party started.
I notice that the father was interested in a contrite heart and a humble spirit. He was far less interested in the sin. Graham Cooke, founder of Brilliant Perspectives, says in The Way of the Warrior, “When the Father looks at you, He doesn’t see anything wrong. He’s not obsessed by sin; He’s not like us. He is consumed by life! God is relentlessly kind. He is never going to quit on you.”
Does our Father want us to be aware of and confess sin? Absolutely. But does he want to end there? No, absolutely not. He wants us to throw a party. In Luke 15:7 (MSG), Jesus begins these parables with the moral. In the parable of the lost sheep, he says, “Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.” I believe we need to build a vertical avenue of celebration between earth and heaven when a renegade comes home and throw a blowout bash horizontally. We do it for birthdays and weddings, and we even have memorial services and going-home celebrations. What better reason could there be for a cake, burgers, joy, and applause than one who was lost but now is found?
In a small way, I experienced one of these parties a few years ago. I regularly go to a prison where I lead Celebrate Recovery step-studies. In step four, we are to do a fearless and honest inventory of our lives, which means taking responsibility for the pain we have caused others and also acknowledging the pain that was inflicted on us—even by ourselves. It’s imperative that we speak our inventory out loud to someone we trust.
One guy asked me to be the one to hear his story. We stood outside the prison chapel one bright, unusually hot, sunny day in February. I leaned against the wall as he paced back and forth and courageously, in brokenness, confessed his past and how he ultimately had ended up in prison. He’d been born into what became a broken home and shuffled back and forth from his father and stepmother, who hated him, to his biological mother, who stopped physically abusing him as he got older and started using emotional and verbal abuse.
He would occasionally land with his grandparents, whom he adored. But they would tell him he needed to work on his relationship with his parents.
The cycle would begin again: back and back to parents who didn’t want him and then to grandparents who thought he needed to be responsible at too young an age for gaining his parents’ approval. He was abandoned and alone.
Growing up, he loved music, the arts, and writing. It was the only time he felt alive. But he made unwise choices and began using drugs and alcohol to cover his loneliness and self-hatred. He was consumed with fear of being abandoned.
He fathered a child with a woman he wasn’t married to. He sabotaged all relationships with drugs and alcohol. Drug-driven fear drove him to cover lies with more lies, suicide attempts, crime, and, finally, murder, which ultimately cost him his freedom.
He began a descent into deep depression, guilt, and shame.
That man, large, physically strong, and ridiculously gifted by God, hung his head down to his chest, heartbroken by his failure. No one had ever said to him the one thing he needed to hear.
Once he finished his inventory, it was time for us to go into the step-study session. During that hour-and-a-half class, I noticed him watching me. I knew without a doubt he was sizing me up, sure I would turn my back on him like everyone else now that I knew him to be a miserable horror of a human being. He was sure I would find him worthless and not worthy of love.
As for me, the whole time, the Holy Spirit was working on me. He was, even before I was aware of it, forming the words in my heart that would pierce the fear of that wounded child of his and open him up to allow the truth of God to course through his heart, veins, mind, and soul.
First of all, of course I wouldn’t do all those things he feared. Of course I would continue that journey with him. His story broke my heart for him, just as it broke God’s.
Yes, hearing his life story was brutal. I was exhausted while driving home that night. But I believe what God said: we are to bear one another’s burdens. Confession sets us free. Or I can walk away from a burden, relieved, because it’s just not a happy feeling.
His life experience told him what he had learned, and as he peered at me during class, he thought, No one is trustworthy.
After class, I pulled him aside. “Listen, I need to tell you two things. No, actually, three—I just thought of a third. First, you in no way have any responsibility for the abuse you endured at the hand of your mother. Zero! Nada! You were nine years old, for crying out loud. You were just a kid. No one deserves that. You are not guilty!”
He said, “Yeah, but—”
I furrowed my brow. “No buts. There are no buts here—except the people who abused you.”
He said, “I know, but—”
“No buts! Period! You have no responsibility there. It’s time to be free of that guilt. It has brought you nothing but undeserved pain your whole life.”
I wasn’t going to let him out of that truth. He smiled and said, “Okay, I hear you. I believe you. I’ll work on it.”
I surprised him with another nugget of truth. “I believe you feel guilt and shame over your love to sing and write.”
He hung his head. “Yes. I guess I feel like I should have done something else.”
I said, “Dude, you were given those gifts by God. Yes, you chose to use them in unhealthy ways. Hear me clearly: God’s plan for you, in whatever way he chooses, includes those gifts. Even though your unhealthy choices landed you here, his plan hasn’t changed for you. He will still use you if you stay surrendered to him and seek him. Do you get that?”
“Yes.”
He tried to read me, as if he felt it was impossible to believe that his life could matter and that God had ever had a plan for him. I saw it in his eyes. They said, “I believe what you’re saying. But it can’t be true for me. How could God ever stick with me after all I’ve done?”
Then the Holy Spirit nudged me. I spoke the words that man had waited his whole life to hear and had probably never heard. I took a deep breath. “One more thing. And you’re not going to want to believe it, so I need you to let go of everything you have known your whole life and, even if only for a few seconds, hear me and trust me. Can you do that? For just a few seconds?”
“Okay. Yes, I’ll try my best.”
“Unless the Lord comes back or calls me home, I am never going to abandon you. I will not leave you. I will walk this journey with you as long as you need me. Do you hear me? I will never abandon you.”
The spiritual implications became physical. For approximately thirty seconds—an eternity—our eyes stayed locked on each other.
Then, slowly, his shoulders relaxed. For another thirty seconds, our eyes remained locked on each other. I became acutely aware that my jaws were firmly sealed, resolved. The bones in my cheeks clenched and unclenched over and over. My brow was furrowed. I do that when I make my mind up about something and take a resolute stand.
His chin began to quiver. He corrected himself for a few seconds and pulled himself into the tough-guy stance again. Then he took two steps back; his eyes filled with tears; and, broken, he said, “You have no idea what that means to me.”
I said, “Oh yeah, I think I do.”
He ran forward and grabbed me. Remember, he was not a small guy. He was a runner who lifted weights, all muscle.
I couldn’t breathe. That so-called hardened criminal held me in a bear hug, with both of us crying and me not breathing, until I was able to squeak out, “I need air.”
Now, don’t think I was being altruistic. As the words I spoke were coming out of my mouth, I was thinking, What are you saying? Do you realize the implications? The responsibility you’re putting on yourself?
If I had listened with human ears, I probably would have never said it.
I like my aloneness. I like giving to those guys once a week and then coming home to my quiet house and my pooches. No real responsibility. No real need to be vulnerable.
But for once, I listened to the Spirit of God, and I obeyed.
One sentence. One statement of acceptance. One moment when I willingly allowed the Holy Spirit to work through his small, feeble fallen son. Is that all it took? Yes!
That was ten years ago. We are still walking the journey together. I’m more observant now. I listen better. I pray I will be an instrument of God’s grace and mercy, which he has generously poured out onto me.
I pray I will hear the plea of a hurting heart and will be able to, with a party, celebrate a homecoming; legitimize the wounds; bear witness to the truth that God’s grace is sufficient, even for the prodigal; and lead them to a clear understanding that they are not alone. Lead them to truly know and believe they are uniquely made and dearly, eternally loved by the One who hung the stars in the heavens. I pray they will live a life knowing that God willingly sent his Son to earth to bear their sins on a cross and that by believing in him, they have not only become his kids but also been given all rights as heirs.
I want them to know that God created the entire universe to sing his praises and that they know—they truly know—at the core of who he is, his desire and plan for them has always been that they be part of the great symphony.
