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the yearning for a final return, an unambiguous sense of safety, a lasting home.
relinquishing the security of the observer for the vulnerability of the returning son seemed close to impossible.
To make my home where God had made his, this is the great spiritual challenge.
I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell. The only way to that place is prayer, unceasing prayer.
One must have died many deaths and cried many tears to have painted a portrait of God in such humility.
We need you to be a father who can claim for himself the authority of true compassion.”
the glory that is hidden in the human soul and surpasses death.
our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
The father’s touching the son is an everlasting blessing; the son resting against his father’s breast is an eternal peace.
Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one.
Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests”—the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light. I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love whenever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am home with God and
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Faith is the radical trust that home has always been there and always will be there.
It is the voice of a nearly blind father who has cried much and died many deaths. It is a voice that can only be heard by those who allow themselves to be touched.
The rebellion of Adam and all his descendants is forgiven, and the original blessing by which Adam received everlasting life is restored.
When he found himself desiring to be treated as one of the pigs, he realized that he was not a pig but a human being, a son of his father. This realization became the basis for his choice to live instead of to die.
why all this preparation of speeches which will never be delivered?
Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. As long as I want to do even a part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant.
Jesus himself became the prodigal son for our sake.
All of this he did, not as a rebellious son, but as the obedient son,
the hardest conversion to go through is the conversion of the one who stayed home.
He did his duty, worked hard every day, and fulfilled all his obligations but became increasingly unhappy and unfree.
This experience of not being able to enter into joy is the experience of a resentful heart.
Is he willing to acknowledge that he is not better than his brother?
something that has attached itself to the underside of my virtue.
Thus the father’s unreserved, unlimited love is offered wholly and equally to both his sons.
He looks at the two of them as aliens who have lost all sense of reality and engage in a relationship that is completely inappropriate, considering the true facts of the prodigal’s life.
He begs me to stop clinging to the powers of death and to let myself be embraced by arms that will carry me to the place where I will find the life I most desire.
Trust and gratitude are the disciplines for the conversion of the elder son.
Living in this radical trust will open the way for God to realize my deepest desire.
The true center of Rembrandt’s painting is the hands of the father.
It never crossed my mind that he might have acted on the supposition that those who had worked in the vineyard the whole day would be deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to do work for their boss, and even more grateful to see what a generous man he is.
the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.
It is the joy that comes from seeing a child walk home amid all the destruction, devastation, and anguish of the world.
From God’s perspective, one hidden act of repentance, one little gesture of selfless love, one moment of true forgiveness is all that is needed to bring God from his throne to run to his returning son and to fill the heavens with sounds of divine joy.
It is the joy of belonging to the household of God whose love is stronger than death and who empowers us to be in the world while already belonging to the kingdom of joy.
The joy of God belongs to his sonship, and this joy of Jesus and his Father is offered to me.
I now see that the hands that forgive, console, heal, and offer a festive meal must become my own.
I am an heir.
The great conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God.
each time I step over this need and act free of my concern for return, I can trust that my life can truly bear the fruits of God’s Spirit.
Generosity creates the family it believes in.
