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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
“When he
came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food
to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father,
I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one
of your hired servants.’ So
he got up and went to his father.”
Luke 15:17-20
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The young son had hit
rock bottom.
He had experienced fun
for a little bit, squandering all his wealth on wild living in a foreign land
after leaving his father with his inheritance, but he soon fell on hard times.
Within Jesus’ parable, the scriptures tell us that a great famine came upon the
land the young man had gone to and it wasn’t long before the young son was
looking for any labor that could help him survive. He petitioned a citizen of
the country for employment and was hired, sent out into the fields to feed pigs
who ended up eating better than he was. In fact, he longed to just eat the pods
the pigs were being fed but no one had taken any pity on him and provided
charity.
Did I mention he had hit
rock bottom?
Well, being in the lowest
points of life has a way of bringing us to our senses and as we see in today’s
passage as we continue our study of one of Jesus’ most well known parables,
that was true for the young son. Look again at these verses from Luke 15 here:
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How
many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving
to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say
to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son;
make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.” Luke 15:17-20
His senses aroused, we
find the young man seeing the desperate place he was in and the need to come up
with a plan less he perish in a field feeding pigs in a land where no one knew
him nor had shown they even cared about him.
What was the young man’s
plan?
Note it was centered on
one thing: returning to his father. Hold that thought for a moment.
Yesterday, I started to
share my personal “hitting rock bottom” testimony. You’ll recall that I had
gotten married young, joined the Navy, and proceeded to stop seeking the Lord’s
will for my life, doing my own thing. The end result was me not being the
spiritual leader I should have been for my family, my world more focused on my
career and success than my wife and daughters who needed and deserved more from
me. And unable to get the love from me that she should have gotten, my wife
looked elsewhere for it and left me for someone else, taking my two daughters
with her. I can tell you that I felt as isolated and helpless as that hungry
young man in the field as I bottomed out in life.
The difference between
my situation and the young man is that he came to his senses a lot quicker than
I did. For I wallowed in the valley of self pity and played the blame game for
three years. You see, it was easy to blame my spouse for leaving me than it was
for taking accountability for being a reason she did it. It took an
intervention to change my situation, bring me to my senses, and help me get
onto the right path in life, one I have not detoured from nor will I ever
again.
It started when I
decided to do something positive with my time and try and help children. I
began volunteering at a local elementary school and had been doing so for
around three months when one day I ran into the school’s assistant principal, a
strikingly beautiful woman who I engaged in conversation. That day led to me
asking her out and then beginning to date her. Right out of the gate, she told
me that if we were going to see one another, the Lord had to be first in our
respective lives and in our relationship. I told her I was committed to that
but deep down inside, I had this feeling of anxiety and one burning question:
Would the Lord accept me
back after I had walked away from Him for so long and did my own thing?
For the answer to that
question, come back and read tomorrow’s devotion because for now, we need to go
back to the young son and the strategy he devised after he came to his senses.
As a refresher, here’s what he resolved to do:
“I will set out and go back to my father
and say to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am
no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired
servants.’”
When he woke up and
realized he was in dire straits, the young man reasoned out his situation. He
was starving in a foreign land but even his father’s servants were eating
better than he was. Ashamed of the way he had conducted himself, asking for his
father’s inheritance early only to go off and squander it all, the young man
decided to go back to his dad, confess his sin, seek the father’s mercy, and
hopefully at least get to be one of the servants. It would be better than where
he was at that moment, that’s for sure.
That was the plan the
young man would go with.
How would the father
receive him once he returned home? And how would that example in the parable
apply to anyone else who did their own thing, hit rock bottom, and then came to
their senses?
We’ll see tomorrow. See
you then.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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