365 Days of the Great Names of God, Day 238: God of the Prodigal

God of the Prodigal

" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 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.' " (Luke 15:31, 32 NIV)

One of the most treasured souvenirs I've picked up along our names of God journey is new information about people, stories, and words I thought I was quite well-informed about already. 

Take the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). I was all set to write about the younger son in the context of the prodigal meaning rebellious and wayward. But then I started to question whether I had ever actually learned the definition of "prodigal," and, when I went searching, found I never had known its true meaning. 

"Prodigal," as it turns out, comes from the Latin "pro," meaning "for or "forward" and "agere," meaning "to drive." Together, these lead to "prodigere," meaning (among other things) "to consume." Taken a little further, "prodigal," as it is used in Jesus' famous parable, means "wastefully extravagant."

Viewed through this lens, all three characters in the story of the prodigal son are prodigal. They are all wastefully extravagant. The younger son, who represents us, casts aside his father's love and the blessings he enjoys at home to go searching for something he considers to be of higher value. When he gets to where he's going, he throws away his resources in search of something he again considers to be of higher value. But in the end, he is wastefully extravagant with his pride: he throws it away and goes searching for something of infinitely higher value...the very things he left in the first place.

The older son, who also represents us (and aren't you so glad Jesus presented the story as a parable so we can readily find ourselves in it?) is also wastefully extravagant. He, too, spends his father's love and his blessings at home with abandon and without restraint. He, too, is looking for something he considers more valuable, though he doesn't leave home to find it. (And this is a good lesson for us: we don't have to run away to be prodigal.)

But the most prodigal character of all in this trio is the father, who represents God. No parable but a true story was God's willingness to spend without restraint something valuable—His own Son—in search of something He considered to be worth the (temporary but painful) loss: relationship with us.

How thankful we can be that as this story played out in the heavenly realms, there was another prodigal...a fourth member of the eternal story. 

Jesus left His Father's house and all the riches there and cast aside fellowship with His Father for a time and went searching for something He considered valuable: us, again. 

We may balk at the inference that God could be wasteful. It sounds like a wrong thing to be, and of course God cannot be any wrong thing. But if we look at "wasteful" as using one's resources for something that will not pay them back…as giving away with no concern for repayment or dividends, then God is surely wasteful. He spends His love and grace and mercy and affection on us with no regard for whether we will ever return these to him. 

God's extravagance is easier to see. I think of extravagance as setting a lavish table with the choicest of foods and the most exquisite china, gold, silver, and linens. Someone asks, "Who is coming for dinner? Royalty or some political leader?" And we reply, "No. I invited a runaway and a beggar. I don't even know if they'll come. But I want them to come more than anything, and if they do, the table will be ready."

This is what our "wastefully extravagant" God does: He sets a lavish table and invites us to it. And He asks us to do the same with the people in our lives: to be wastefully extravagant with our love so that when the prodigals come home, the table is set for them.

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God, thank You that You love me extravagantly, with no regard for return. Help me to love others this way and to be ready for celebration when the dead live again and the lost are found.