The Story of the Prodigal Son

The Gospel of Luke tells a story familiar to us all about a son coming to his father for forgiveness and it being granted.  This is a common plot in many a story and this could well be the origin of it.  All of us grow up wanting to leave home at some point whether we have a conflict with our parents or we just want to be more independent.  This story has many different emotions that show throughout our three characters; elder son, younger son and father.  In the case of the elder son he shows that he strives to be on his own and he is tired of the monotony that surrounds his father’s farm.  He wants a life where he can truly be alive and do what he wants when he wants.  This attitude of the elder son is taken fine by the father who provides the means by which his son can go out and live this kind of lifestyle he so desperately desires.  If this act on the part of the father is the right one or not we do not know.  All we can imagine is that he is doing this to try and teach his son a lesson and what better way to teach a lesson than personal experience.  The son goes out with his father’s blessing (and money,) and proceeded to live a lavish lifestyle until his funds run out and he is forced to live with pigs to have any chance of survival.  At this point he runs back to his father to ask him for the help that he desperately needs and his father receives his son unquestioningly.

This acceptance by father leads us to our next point and that is what this does to his loyal younger son.  The younger son has been slaving away in the fields for his father his whole life obeying his every command and then his brother comes home after wronging the father and is enthusiastically accepted and even offered a feast.  This acceptance naturally spurs jealousy and anger in the younger son and rightfully does this.  One cannot blame the father for accepting his eldest son nor could you blame the son for felling anger over this same event.  It is the Christian way to forgive those who remorse but it is also human nature to ire those unfaithful who get praised.

In our own life we all have these types of situations to some extent.  My younger cousin who is starting high school this fall has been a miscreant at his last school for a couple of years now reeking havoc in whatever he did.  But lately he has started to mature and he is beginning to see the error in his ways.  His parents forgave him with open arms as he apologized for causing all this trouble throughout middle school.  Sometimes we just have to let things drop and forgive to have any chance to move on to the next stage in our life.  Without this forgiveness we would not be able to advance and would and we would be at a stand still in our life.