Last Sunday, our Idaho family gathered to celebrate Bob’s and my son-in-love Mike’s birthdays. We had just put the food on the table when this sweet face appeared at our glass-front door. It was our grandson from California. He was followed by our son and daughter-in-love. We had not seen them since last May.
It was a surprise last minute trip for them. They were here Sunday and Monday and are traveling home today. It was a brief trip but a wonderful surprise. I knew I missed them, but until I saw them, I did not realize how deep that longing was to see them and hold them again.
Luke 15:32: But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. [NIV]
This is the ending of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The father was speaking to his eldest son, who didn’t want to see or attend a celebration given for his younger brother – the one who had squandered his inheritance and now had returned home destitute and needy.
The father, however, had never lost hope that his son would return. He had never stopped loving him and longing to hold him again. Now that the boy had returned to the father’s embrace it didn’t matter what he had done or where he had gone or how much he had lost. It only mattered that he was home.
We had to celebrate and be glad …. The return of the lost demands a celebration. It commands us to be glad. Even the angels in heaven rejoice over the return of the lost, and God, Himself, rejoices over them with singing. [Zephaniah 3:17]
How can we not join in the celebration and be glad, especially when we realize we were the lost and now we are the found? We are saved! I love the quote below from A. W. Tozer. I paraphrase it often that if God never answers another prayer or does another thing for me, it doesn’t matter because He has saved me. I will be glad!
“Sometimes I go to God and say, “God, if Thou dost never answer another prayer while I live on this earth, I will still worship Thee as long as I live and in the ages to come for what Thou hast done already. God’s already put me so far in debt that if I were to live one million millenniums I couldn’t pay Him for what He’s done for me.” ― A.W. Tozer
