A parable that shows true forgiveness – that God is always ready to receive us

ASKED to name my favourite of Jesus’ parables I have no hesitation in replying, “The Prodigal Son”. The story of the younger son who leaves home, squanders his inheritance and returns in poverty to his father’s estate simply asking to work as a servant is a familiar one. The twist is that the father, rather than listing his faults and turning him away, welcomes him lavishly into the bosom of the family once more.

I love this story mainly because of its inspiring picture of the nature of God. Here, the God Jesus describes is always ready to receive us, forgive us and longs to fill our lives with good things. That’s a God I need to hear about.

I love it too because although I have been reading it regularly for almost half a century this story always has something new to show me. This week I read again of the loving father who embraces his son and immediately orders him to be dressed in fine clothes. But, I thought, he had been working amongst the pig sties, eating their food and has travelled a long way to get back home. Surely, he is more than a little dishevelled, dirty, footsore and, to be brutally frank, quite smelly. Yet the father doesn’t ask the son to make himself presentable before he will receive him. He doesn’t insist that he takes a bath before hugging him. He doesn’t ask the son to prove he has changed before he will listen to his apology. He receives him as he is and loves him just the way he is.

In the same way, I reflected, God does not wait for us to get our lives in order before he allows us to call himself his children. We may tell ourselves we are not good enough to approach God. But this story tells us that, true though that is, God looks not for our goodness but simply invites us to come.

It’s a great story found in Luke chapter fifteen and if you haven’t read it for a while I highly commend it.

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