Luke 15:17-19

Luke 15:17-19

“And he came to himself and was saying, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants abound in bread?  Yet I perish here in scarcity.  After rising up, I will journey to my father and I will say to him, ‘Father, I sinned into heaven and in your presence.  I am not worthy to be called your son.  Make me as one of your hired servants.’’

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

We see confirmation of where we left off yesterday.  Hitting rock bottom, he finally starts thinking with sanity.  He doesn’t have anything to distract him from his misery.  He doesn’t have any false hope to cling to.  He has to face reality.  That reality is the fact that his father’s hired servants are living better than he is living.  His father’s servants have made better choices in life than he has.  He knows this now.

Why do human beings actually need to lose all sources of false hope before often being able to come to their senses?  Why will human beings cling to anything that might save them before truly recognizing their actual circumstances?

Second Thought:

After coming to his senses, the young man does something else that really makes sense.  He starts making a plan.  When the young man left home with money in his pocket, he had no plan.  He was going to go out and live the high life, not realizing how quickly he will burn through the resources.  But now that he has come back to his senses, the plan comes.  To get out of the dark place where he has descended, he needs to stop living on a whim and start living according to a plan.

When has making a plan actually helped you find a way out of dark places of despair?  Do you find it is easy to make a plan?  How easy is it to stick to a plan once it’s made?

Third Thought:

The next thing that the son does is to rehearse his confession.  He knows that he is going to have to own up to what he has done.  There is genuine confession here.  There is genuine repentance here.  The young son is taking ownership of what he has done.  He is owning the break in relationship that he caused.  After coming to his senses and after making a plan, he rehearses what needs to be said so that when the time comes he can do it right, the way that it deserves to be done.

Why do we need to rehearse taking ownership?  Have you ever tried to apologize without truly thinking it through first?  Why is it important that we think through our repentance?

Passage for Tomorrow: Luke 15:20-24