PERPETUALLY PRODIGAL...

Sometimes I view the story of the prodigal son as a season of life...a period of time when I've lost my senses and gone against my Father's best for me. Sooner or later I'll regain them, realizing the error of my ways, and return home in pursuit of honor and nobility. Other times, I suspect the story represents my condition as a human being...period. A habitual falling short of the glory of God. A recurring theme of failure and compromise which leads me to intimately understand my desperate need for a Savior. It makes me began to catch a glimpse of how colossal his work of redemption is, and how absolutely dependent on it's promise I am. Outside of the grace of God...I was doomed to remain utterly lost. Diseased with sin and imprisoned by vice...beyond any glimmer of even beginning to save myself. I would've hoped that having been on this journey with God for as long as I have, that I would have by now attained a certain measure of maturity and groundedness in the faith. Yet I often feel as helpless and as ignorant as when I first heeded the call of God at all. I know the scriptures speak of a progression of faith, but perhaps that progression goes mostly unnoticed by the disciple themselves. I hope that's at least partly the case. That God sees in me a development of character that I fail to recognize myself. Alternatively, it may just be that I really am as poor an apprentice of Christ as I often suspect...a lowly son who's sold out his birthright...in dire need of a Father's liberating embrace. That when it's all said and done...I am decreased, He is increased...His steadfast love and tireless goodness celebrated for eternity evermore. A humble saint, bowed reverently at the throne of the Master, forcing proclamations of passionate and grateful adoration through the joyful sobs of an eternally grateful heart.