The Blessedness of Brokenness
part two on the Prodigal Son
Scripture Reading: Luke 15:11-30
In the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” Jesus describes this son as taking what he had been given by his father and going far away and wasting it all. In Jesus’ story, the young man ends up flat broke. He is so destitute that he has to feed himself by eating out of a hog trough. That’s broke broke.
This is a parable. It isn’t a real-life event. Not that it couldn’t have been. A part of Jesus’ brilliance is that His parables always had a ring of truth to them. The people who first heard them could imagine the events actually happening. But Jesus isn’t telling a story about a real person. It is a smart way of making the point.
But let’s imagine it was a real person that Jesus was talking about. Then, let’s change a minor detail and imagine what would have been the outcome. What if this Prodigal went to a far country, lived wickedly, but also invested wisely? As a result of his investments and business dealings, what if he was able to maintain a respectable and comfortable lifestyle?
Given those changes in his experience, would he have come to his senses and returned to his father? Well, I speaking in hypotheticals, so there is no way of knowing for certain. But based upon the motivations we see in Jesus' story, it doesn’t appear likely. Most likely, he would have remained in the far country, living a debauched life until the day of his death.
Why am I postulating about this? To make the point that sometimes the best thing that can happen to some people is for them to hit rock bottom. For some people, being broke and broken is the only thing that will get them to come to their senses and return to the Father.
While is it often good and right to help people who have fallen to get up, we need to use wisdom. In our desire to deliver someone out of their problems, we may unintentionally also deliver them from finally facing their need to repent and return to God.
I don’t have any hard and fast rules that can be applied to every situation. Sometimes helping helps and sometimes helping hurts. We need to pray and seek the wisdom of God. We should seek not just the temporal and physical well-being of the person who needs help, but their eternal and spiritual well-being as well. Sometimes people have to feed at a hog trough before they will come to their senses and go to the Father.
