God with our children. Indeed, as
much as we love them, they are
not ours to keep and hold onto.
They have to explore and learn
who they are for themselves.
Living on their own will certainly
help them do that.
The Lost Son
Remember the story of The
Prodigal Son? Jesus tells the
parable in Luke 15 beginning
with verse 11. Often, we dwell on
the son in the story who leaves
home. Perhaps this is because
he was given his portion of the
inheritance, which is an undisclosed amount of money. So he
receives this windfall and then
leaves home and travels far
away from home to enjoy spending it.
We then see him crash and burn
right before our eyes. He spends
all he h as on wasteful, extravagant living. Then once the famine
comes, he has nothing. We see
him starving, and reduced to
feeding swine and wishing he
could eat with them. He realizes
he made a terrible mistake and
finds his way back home where
his father eagerly, lovingly, and
happily accepts him.
It’s easy to see why we get stuck
on the son who left home. It’s
entertainment in our society to
see people start out with a lot
of money and then fall on their
faces. Most of us would never
admit that, but it is true. We may
feel sorry for them, but we still
watch to see what will become
of them. We scrutinize to see if
we can pinpoint what happened,
what they did wrong, what mistakes they made, and what we
would do differently if given the
same opportunity.
ably would have told his son to
be careful, prayerful, and spend
What we don’t often talk about the money wisely. But all he had
in this story is the father’s heart, a chance to do was see his son
which is a picture of the heart of leave home.
Father God. What did he think
when his younger son came to Life Lessons
him demanding his inheritance?
What’s more, why did he give it So maybe that can teach all of us
to him, without even a discus- something. Maybe that means
sion? Had there been a discus- we need to take out the time to
sion previously?
share wisdom with our kids while
we are able, while we have them
According to Old Testament with us. We should not only warn
Laws, the youngest son only them of danger, but encourage to
received one third of the father’s use wisdom, and to be their best
inheritance. A third of anything selves. We can sit down with
is considerably less than the them at a meal and mention to
whole. We know this without them the things we’d like to see
even knowing the amount. Yet in them as adult children leaving
we can safely guess it was a the home. This would include
pretty good chunk of change for things such as godly character,
him to enjoy such extravagance integrity, accountability.
for the time period that he did.
Our children need to know we
My thought is that the father don’t expect perfection. For
didn’t get a chance to speak those of you parents who might
with his sons about such things expect perfection from your kids,
as proper spending habits, and news flash: God doesn’t even
what to do with their portion expect perfection. Therefore,
once it was allotted. He prob- how can we? We are not perfect,
ably figured he still had time. yet He loves us just the same.
He had probably been meaning How much more should we be
to get around to it, but with so towards our own children. They
many other things on his plate, need to know that from us. They
just hadn’t done it yet. After all, need to know that yes, they will
he had a business to run, he make mistakes. The key is to
was a single father from what we learn and grow from those miscan tell, so he had to bear the takes, rather than repeat them.
brunt of it all by himself, and all That’s exactly what the lost son
at once.
did. He made a huge mistake,
but he learned from it.
From scripture, we see very
little discussion with the son on He left the home prideful and
the part of the father. I can only arrogant, but returned repenimagine the things he wanted tant and ashamed. His heart
to tell his son who had essen- had been changed from stone to
tially announced he was leaving flesh, and was fertile ground for
home by demanding his portion starting over and being his best
of his father’s money. Had he self. No wonder the father was
had the opportunity, he prob- so pleased to see him return.