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A Father’s Love

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and

embraced him, and kissed him.  Luke 15:20

                Perhaps the finest example of fatherhood in the Bible is the story of the Prodigal Son. Jesus used this parable to illustrate the love that God the Father has for His beloved children. The reason this account is so universally applicable and appreciated is that just about everybody experiences, on some level, what the Prodigal Son experienced. There has been a time in most of our lives when we’re certain we know better than our parents. We think we have it all figured out.

                You’re pretty familiar with the story. The son gets his inheritance early from his father and he goes off to a distant land and squanders it. And when the young man runs out of money he runs out of friends and he ends up in a hog wallow, eating from the slop that is fed to the pigs. This is a very humiliating condition for a Jewish man to be in. Sitting there in the hog wallow the young man comes to himself and he starts thinking, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare? And here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father.”

                This is important. The Prodigal Son felt that he could go back to his father. He was willing to be considered as one of his father’s servants if he could just be allowed back under his father’s roof. Even if the relationship might never be the same, he   believed the door might still be open to him. Why did he entertain that notion?

                Probably because all throughout the years he was reared in his father’s household his Daddy had communicated  his  undying love for his son. “No matter how far you stray, you can always come back home again son.” That kind of love     

is a vital thing to communicate to our children as fathers.

                So the Prodigal Son said to himself, “I will say to my father, ‘I have sinned against heaven and against you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men.’” I bet you he practiced this speech a    thousand times as he made his way back home with his tail between his legs.

                But as the son made his way up the path towards his father’s house, nervously wondering whether he would be accepted or turned away, his father was making his way down the path at breakneck speed. The father threw his arms around his son and kissed him. The father had no qualms about expressing his love and affection, did he? Our children   certainly need fathers who aren’t fearful of expressing their love and affection for their children, even when it seems that they are less than deserving.

                The beautiful part of this story is that it points to the gracious love of God the Father in heaven who always leaves the door open for us to come home again. As earthly fathers we need to teach our children that no matter how deep their sin might feel, they can always come home to a forgiving heavenly Father, and a forgiving earthly father. Let your children know that no matter what there will be an earthly father waiting for them on life’s pathway to embrace them, love them, kiss them, and welcome them home forever.                                                                                                                        Pastor Neil