His eyes darted first to his right, then to his left, like he was looking for an exit that didn’t exist. I could feel his agitation, reminding me of when as a boy, I had stopped at Swain’s pet shop on the way home from school, and gazing at the pitiful, caged raccoon scratching to escape his confinement, felt sorrowful for him.
This man had been had. And now there was no place for him to land but home.
As Robert Frost said, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
But was it his choosing?
I couldn’t tell.
Not yet.
You’ve probably seen this person too, at some point in your life.
Maybe he’s crossed your path without your knowing it.
Perhaps she was there, knocking at your door one more time in the dead of the night after you thought you would never see her again.
He’s likely been there, maybe even watching you, just to see what you would do if he showed up, broke and bedraggled.
Still don’t recall?
Okay, try this: take a deep breath. And knowing you as you know yourself, you’d better take at least one more.
Now, pause. Do it again, no hurry, take long enough to look within.
Go deep. If you don’t rush it, you’ll find him.
Did you?
There he is.
He, or she, whomever, is in there, lurking in one of those dark recesses in the corner of your psyche, skillfully escaping your grasp.
Or is it that you are afraid to peer into yourself, for fear of the person you might find?
Could it be the prodigal in you?
Not many like to admit it, but we’ve been in the far country, at least once, sometime.
And if you haven’t, you’ve likely missed out on an awareness of God’s grace, for grace is for sinners— at least those of us who are willing to admit that’s what we are.
And where we are.
Or have been: in the far country.
You know the problem too well: we pride ourselves on being experts at camouflaging the far country that occupies the real estate of our soul. We have perfected its denial into an art form.
We disguise its odor with sweet smelling incense that’s lost all meaning for us, pay its dues in tithes and offerings that aren’t from our heart, hide its borders with leather-covered Bibles we don’t read, and intone its anthems with impressive-sounding hymns we don’t understand.
Then we anoint the far country with comparisons of our material blessings: 401k’s (“I’m set, sorry you aren’t”), cars and trucks, (“Mine’s newer than yours”) vacations (“maybe you can try our exotic resort some day”), and clothes (“Like my new designer bag?”).
We morph into the elder brother, dutifully doing what the Father we think we know —but in truth, don’t— demands of us, but in fact, doesn’t— assuming that we are blessed and highly favored—a result of our own goodness, of course.
All because we stayed home and kept our record clean.
Yet even if we never officially bolted for the far country, we still yearn for it; that’s why it can travel so compactly with us: not even a passport is necessary to move about in the far country.
But, a prodigal still we are—for the prodigal is by definition, wasteful. And not to be at peace with The Father—whether residing in His house or running away from it— is a waste of a life.
One must return, finally, if restoration with the Father is to be found.
As C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, put it: “Repentance is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like.”
I watched his eyes as they stared downward, then after what seemed like an eternity, they seemed finally to relax, reposing in what seemed to me: peace.
Then the embrace followed.
But before he could reach for me, I had already found him:
The Prodigal in me.
Taken in by Him.
The Father.
“Welcome home, welcome home.”