1/6/2026

Day 6

The Prodigal's Return

Luke 15:11-24

"Jesus continued: 'There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, "Father, give me my share of the estate." So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country, and there squandered his wealth in wild living.'" (Luke 15:11-13)

The younger son's surrender began in a pigpen. Surrounded by carob pods he couldn't even eat, desperately hungry and utterly alone, he "came to himself"—a beautiful phrase suggesting he'd been living outside his true identity, disconnected from who he really was. The rebellion that had promised ultimate freedom had delivered only slavery. Self-determination, pursued so eagerly, had led directly to self-destruction. The distant country that sparkled with possibility from his father's house now revealed itself as a place of famine, degradation, and despair.

Surrender often starts precisely here—in crisis, in the painful recognition that our way has failed spectacularly. The son's first surrender was to reality itself: "How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!" Self-honesty must precede spiritual surrender. We cannot return home until we first admit we're lost. We cannot receive help until we acknowledge we need it. This moment of clarity in the pigpen, surrounded by the evidence of his choices, becomes the turning point where surrender becomes possible.

His carefully planned speech, however, reveals lingering misunderstanding about the nature of surrender and grace: "I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants." He thinks he can earn his way back, negotiate a lower position in the household, and surrender partially while maintaining some control. He'll be a servant, work off his debt, and prove his worthiness gradually. But the father won't hear this transactional arrangement.

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." (Luke 15:20)

The father interrupts the rehearsed speech with ring, robe, sandals, and feast. He runs—undignified for a patriarch—toward the returning son. He embraces him while he still smells of pigs and poverty. He commands complete restoration: the best robe (signifying honor), the family ring (signifying authority), sandals (signifying sonship, not servanthood), and the fattened calf (signifying celebration). Complete surrender meets complete restoration, no probation required.

The father's response reveals what God does with our surrenders. He doesn't grudgingly accept us back on conditional terms or extended probation. He doesn't keep a record of offenses or demand we work our way back into His good graces. He runs toward us with joy, embraces us in our brokenness, and restores our position fully and immediately. Surrender to this kind of Father isn't grim duty or reluctant submission—it's coming home to where we've always belonged.

But the story doesn't end there. The older brother's anger exposes another, perhaps more insidious, failure to surrender. He stayed home physically but never surrendered his heart. He served dutifully but resentfully, counting his obedience as leverage for claims on the father's resources. "All these years I've been slaving for you," he complains, revealing his servant mentality despite his son status. He surrendered actions but not affections, behavior but not beliefs. His surrender was transactional, not relational—a contract, not a covenant.

The father pleads with him too: "My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours." Both sons needed to surrender—one to his rebellion and reckless autonomy, the other to his resentment and self-righteous scorekeeping. Both needed to stop relating to the father as merely a means to their desired ends and surrender instead to the relationship itself, to being loved simply as sons.

Where are you in this story? Are you in a far country, needing to come home from rebellion? Are you in the near field, needing to come inside from resentment? Either way, the Father waits for your surrender, ready to run toward you with arms open wide.

Will you pay the price of brokenness? Success did not heal my brokenness. 

It deepened it. Brokenness keeps me usable."