Prodigal

What a word. Prodigal. It evokes such powerful images. The idea of throwing love and protection back in a loved one's face and leaving only to come running back in anguish from the world outside and the ruin we've created to fall forgiven into the arms of the one we rejected.

And yet it is so often abused. The idea that we are all prodigals of God's love and he will take us back does not mean that we get to run away because we know he will take us back. Being the prodigal does not erase the responsibility of what we do, before or after we are forgiven.

It is so frustrating to me when people want to lean on this idea of being the prodigal to erase their poor choices. If a young person runs away from home and does drugs, or commits a crime, or gets pregnant, they can still come home, be forgiven and be loved, but they still have to take responsibility or face the consequences of those actions. Asking for forgiveness is not a way to avoid or run from our actions or their repercussions.

God forgave David for his actions with Bathsheba and for killing her husband. That forgiveness was total and unending. The responsibilities, though, the death of their son, and the knowledge of what they had done, that was still there. The forgiveness is not that the sin is erased from existence, but that we don't have to pay the eternal price for it. The worldly one, we may still and often do still have to.

As a teacher if I always give my students a second chance with no repercussions at all, they never learn responsibility. Further what is the point of trying hard, making a genuine effort, if you can just start over fresh the next day until forever? Seriously.

Grace is a gift. We don't deserve it. We didn't earn it. We can ask for it and receive it. It is a get out of Hell free card. When received genuinely. However it is not a get out of responsibility forever card.

The other part of that is that our hurts and griefs and the sins perpetuated on us by others are not an excuse or pass on the sins we perpetuate on others. Terrible things may have happened to you. You may have done terrible things to others because of that, but, YOU still did those terrible things to someone else. You have to take responsibility for that. Hopefully you will be forgiven on earth (by those you hurt) as you are in heaven (by Jesus and Our Father) but that doesn't mean that those that you hurt have to or can forget what you did to them or that they will or have to kill the fatted calf in your honor. Nor do you get to demand that. This is called accepting responsibility for your actions.

The good news is that God will be with you, to comfort you and guide you through the process and your own grief in your sin. Hopefully he will be there for the ones you sinned against in their healing and forgiveness of you...

There are several people in my life who feel their admission, their repentance and my forgiveness is enough to simply make the pain caused go away and that everything goes back to the way it was. There are reasons, they feel, for what happened, and therefore I am the one who is unreasonable to guard parts of myself from them or to keep parts of my life separate from them now. Several other people in my life have the same problem with others in their life.

At the same time, there are those I have hurt that I wish would forgive me and/or "take me back." Some of them have. Some of them haven't and probably won't. That is my responsibility, burden, to bear because of my sin. God can help me with that...

This has nothing to do with anything specific that has happened lately, just a response of sorts to something I read today.

It does make me thankful for God's forgiveness and most importantly for his Grace.