Day 5

One word.

That's all it would have taken to avoid the whole mess.

Just one word: No!

Ever wonder why the wise Father didn't just say "No"? Jesus' listeners would not have been surprised at all by that. In face they would have expected it. What self-respecting Father would give in to a willful son's petulant demands?

But if you know who the Father is...then you know he has a thing about saying, "Ok, if that's what you want." He began it in the garden and has never stopped. God granted humans the ability to choose their path. He gave us the right to be wrong. And in doing so, he set in motion the ability for prodigals to choose poorly, for wastrels to waste adn rebels to rebel.

We call it free will. But what we should call it is a pain!

Without this precious gift, the prodigal would have been spared all the pain of the pig pen.

He would never have known want.

He would never have felt loss.

He would never have experienced the emptiness inside that led him to go back home.

So... he never would have felt the Father's redeeming hug and restoring kiss.

I know, I know... We all wonder if there isn't some way to get one without the other. Couldn't God have devised a universe in which you don't have the room to make mistakes but you have the ability to love freely? I can only imagine that if the possibility existed, the Father would have figured that out.

But in the world I live in, real love is always freely given.

True devotion is never delivered in shackles.

And the Father's choice to give me freedom is my greatest gift and toughest burden.

Thank you, Father...for not saying "No."



Jeff Walling