Welcome Home

He groaned as he carried the heavy wooden bucket to the pigs. It was full of half-eaten apples, rotten figs, and whatever other spoiled things that the master's family didn't want anymore. He could barely stomach the awful stench of the putrid remains. He stumbled, sloshing the filth onto the rags that he wore for clothes and all over his bare feet, cracked and bleeding from the rocks and thorns he was forced to walk over every day. 

But that was different now. Why did I ever decide that I wanted my share of the inheritance? He thought, angry with himself. Why did I spend it all in the city? Sure, I threw some pretty amazing parties, and there were a lot of people that wanted me around: beautiful women, popular guys, powerful men. They all called me their friend, but where are they now?

He carried the bucket over to the trough, and poured it out. The foul muddy pigs waddled over, snorting and grunting as they sifted through the slop, each eager to find the most vile disgusting piece of garbage and claim it as his own.

His stomach growled. It had been days since his last meal. He looked down at the slop. That food isn't so bad, he thought. That apple there, it was originally shrunken and purple, wasn't it? And what about that piece of meat? There's only a few maggots on it.

He stared at the slop, listening to his stomach growl louder and louded. With each sound, the food--if it could be called food--began to look better and better.

He bent down into the mud and grabbed a half-chewed grape. He put it into his mouth and slowly chewed and swallowed. It wasn't so bad.

If he could get past the gag reflex, it was actually pretty good.

He began to sift through the slop more eagerly; grabbing whatever he could find and shoving it desperately into his mouth, not caring about the taste, only about sating his hunger. He shoved a pig aside as it tried to grab an apple, biting into the soft, rotten skin.

He gagged, unable to stomach the rotten food.

He began to sob. "What am I doing? Even the servants in my father's house can eat until they're satisfied, and I'm dying of hunger!"

He stood up slowly. He felt a deep desire, a need to go home. But he was ashamed.

I'll just ask my father to work as a servant in his house. I'll tell him I've sinned and that I've done wrong and thought I'm no longer the boy that he called "son". I'm not worthy to even call him father.

So he stood up and left, traveling the many miles back to his father's farm. The road began to look familiar. That was the tree that he used to climb.

There was the fence that he and his brother had built.

There was the barn that he had tried to jump off of, breaking his arm.

His heart jumped. There was his father.

What was he doing?

Was he running? To him?

He's coming to yell at me. He knows I've wasted my money and that I'm not worth anything. He's not going to let me come home.

But wait--He was smiling? Yes! His father was running to him, and he was smiling! His arms were outstretched, hungry and eager to embrace him!

His father ran to him and hugged him tighter than he could ever remember being held before. His father was laughing and crying at the same time.

He thought, I've got to say it now. If I don't say it now, it'll never get said.

And so he pulled away from his father and told him all that he had done. He told him how that he had wasted all the money. He told him that he wasn't worthy to be called his father's son.

And then he waited.

His father stood there for a moment, silent and thoughtful.

And then, in a soft, quiet voice, he spoke. "Bring me my best clothes. Give him jewelry and shoes. Kill that really fat cow, because we are going to celebrate.

"My son was dead, and he's alive again. He was lost, but now he's found."

You know who that son was?

It was me.

And it was you.

At some point, even if you've accepted Christ as Lord and Savior in your life, we all eventually wander. We become selfish and focused on our own desires, and we take what we want and spend it on us.

But God still loves you.

No matter what you've done, God is still waiting with open arms. Waiting to hug you and kiss you and to say, "Welcome Home".

Adapted from the story of the Prodigal Son: Luke 15:11-24