I Want to Come Home!

The Restless Whisper

The ache began as a whisper—a thin, restless thread tugging at the younger son’s chest while morning light slid across the courtyard stones.

Bread was baking; doves were cooing in the eaves; his father’s voice carried from the far field like a well-worn melody. But the boy’s pulse pounded to a different drum, a fever of elsewhere. He wanted the thrill of roads without fences, love without vows, money without mornings in the dust. Freedom, he told himself, though the word tasted more like impatience.

The Ask Beneath the Fig Tree

He found his father beneath the shade of the old fig tree, the one that had watched him learn to walk. He did not look at the calluses in those hands, or the laugh lines time had carved around those eyes. He lifted his chin and said the sentence that sours the sweetest air: “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me” (Luke 15:12). No argument. No bargaining. Only a long silence, a breath that trembled, and then the steady work of division. Love, when it is genuine, does not chain the beloved. The father placed the inheritance into hands not yet wise enough to carry it, and watched those hands turn toward the road.

The Carnival of the Far Country

The city met him like a carnival.

Music in the alleys.

Laughter that promised to drown out old commandments.

Arms that opened for his coins and closed when they were gone.

For a while, gold made him a prince and his name drew crowds. He learned which tavern had the strongest wine and which rooms went dark behind velvet curtains. He learned to spend like time would never catch him. “And there wasted his possessions with prodigal living” (Luke 15:13).

Famine Outside, Famine Inside
Time did catch him.

So did hunger.

“But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want” (Luke 15:14). The world that had sparkled now stared with hard eyes.

He knocked; doors did not open.

He smiled; nobody smiled back.

He sold what he could not keep and pawned what he could not replace, until the only thing left to trade was dignity.

Rock Bottom in the Pigsty

He hired himself to a man who sent him into the fields where the air was a wet, sour blanket of animal musk. “Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine” (Luke 15:15).

The pods crackled in his palm like brittle bones.

“And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything” (Luke 15:16). Nights were worst—the way the cold seeped into his joints, the way shame gnawed at the edges of sleep, the way memory knocked like a stranger on the door of his skull.

The Moment of Clarity

One night, the knocking broke the lock.

“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!’” (Luke 15:17).

He saw it clearly, all at once—the warm lamp on the kitchen table, steam rising from bowls, the hired men laughing soft after a day’s labor, his father’s habit of blessing the bread before it broke.

Hunger made him honest. He rehearsed a small confession with raw lips and a hoarse throat: “I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’” (Luke 15:18–19).

The Long Road Home

So he rose. The road home was not dramatic—just long.

Dust worked its way into his sandals and grief into his bones.

Every mile peeled back a layer of pretense.

He wondered if the door would open.

He wondered if he’d be recognized at all. He looked down at his hands and saw a beggar’s story written in cracked knuckles and grime.

The Father Who Runs

He did not know that the house had been keeping a vigil.

Some mornings the father stood at the gate with a staff, pretending to survey the grove while his eyes studied the horizon.

Some evenings he took the high path by the wall, lingering until the stars pinned themselves to the sky.

He learned the shapes of distant travelers—the slouch of merchants, the swagger of soldiers—but never the silhouette he craved.

Grief became his shadow; hope became his stubborn prayer.

Then one afternoon, heat shimmering on the road, a figure appeared—thin, hesitant, stitched together by exhaustion.

The father did not consult his dignity.

He did not wait for certainty.

Compassion exploded. “

But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).

Age forgot itself.

Robes lifted.

Sandals slapped stone.

And the quiet countryside witnessed the most undignified miracle—a dignified man sprinting like a boy toward a boy who looked nothing like a son.

Interrupted by Mercy

The son began his speech, the one he had practiced between footfalls: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:21).

But mercy tends to interrupt.

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry” (Luke 15:22–24).

Note the details: best robe—he is covered where he is most ashamed.

A ring—authority returned to trembling fingers.

Sandals—servants go barefoot; sons wear shoes. A feast—the house chooses music over muttering, dancing over dossiers of failure. Grace does not put you on probation; it puts you at the table.

The Sting of Duty: The Older Brother

But grace also tests those who stayed.

The older brother came in from the fields with truth under his fingernails—the kind that keeps books balanced and rules obeyed.

He heard the drumbeat, smelled the meat, and anger lit his face like a struck match.

He would not set foot across the threshold.

The father went out again—first to the broken, now to the bitter.

The elder’s words were a ledger, a list presented like an invoice: “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends” (Luke 15:29).

He wouldn’t say my brother. He said, “this son of yours … who has devoured your livelihood with harlots” (Luke 15:30). Resentment always edits family into fractions.

A Father’s Second Plea

The father did not scold.

He reminded.

“Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found” (Luke 15:31–32).

The feast was not a math problem to be solved; it was a resurrection to be celebrated.

Our Street, Our Story

Now pull the camera from Galilee to your street, your kitchen, your late‑night thoughts.

Maybe you know the pig‑yard hunger—the addiction you swore you’d stop, the relationship that burned a hole in your soul, the secret you keep in the bottom drawer, the debt statement like a monthly accusation, the laughter that dies when the door clicks shut.

Maybe the far country isn’t a location but a habit—scrolling until your heart goes numb, buying to feel alive, talking about God while refusing to talk to Him.

Hear this in the same breath that cracked open the countryside that day: the Father runs.

Not with reluctant tolerance but with wild mercy. “

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

And when Christ cried out and gave up His spirit, “behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:51).

The heavens did not merely part for a moment; a way was carved—permanent, blood-bought, open.

Love Up Close

What does love look like up close?

It looks like a father squinting at the horizon when everyone else is tired of waiting.

It looks like robes that smell of cedar wrapped around rags that smell of pigs.

It looks like a ring pressed into a palm that still trembles.

It looks like shoes on feet that blistered their way home.

It looks like a table spread when the case for punishment seems open-and-shut.

It sounds like music drowning out the sound of accusations.

It feels like arms that don’t let go. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1).

For the Worn and the Weary

For the single mom who falls asleep with a calculator and wakes to another pink notice—there is a God who runs.

For the businessman who built ladders he hates to climb—there is a God who runs.

For the teenager whose search history feels like a verdict, for the widow who eats in silence, for the pastor who can craft a sermon but cannot remember the last time he sang alone in the dark—there is a God who runs.

The First Step and the Interruption of Grace

So arise.

The road back is not far; it begins on your next breath.

Say what the boy said.

Say it out loud if you have to: I have sinned against heaven and before You; I am not worthy… And listen for the interruption of grace.

Listen for the command to dress you, the ring drumming gently on your knuckle, the thud of sandals that make you taller than your shame.

Step across the threshold you thought was closed.

Let the music carry your name.

From Outside to Inside

And if bitterness has you camped outside, counting slights, come in.

Let the Father’s words reframe the story: You are always with Me. All that I have is yours.

The feast is not a threat to your place; it is a witness to your family.

The miracle in the middle of the room does not diminish you; it defines the kind of house you live in.

Draw Near and Stay

Draw near.

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

Eat the bread of welcome.

Feel the weight of the robe.

Learn again the laugh you lost. Stay.

Not for a night, not until the goosebumps fade—stay.

Abide under a sky that will not close, because Love Himself holds it open over you.

The Father is at the gate.

The horizon is brightening.

The dust that rises may be your own footsteps.

The music you hear may be for you.

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