A Different Perspective Official Podcast

When life is really tough and when you've lost hope and you're afraid – you can either lie there, completely immobilised – or you can take a really simple, obvious step. Question is – in which direction?
We all have choices in life. Sometimes we make good choices, more often than not those good choices have good outcomes and we can all look back and see some of the bad choices we've made and the consequences of those choices but you know the hardest choices to make are the ones we make in the dark. You know, in those dark times, the difficult times, the times when we're hurting so bad that our sense of balance and right and wrong and up and down is all out of kilter.
The whole thing about that sort of darkness is that we can't see forward, we can't see back and it's such a difficult place to be. Well today, today we're going to look at a choice that we can make in those dark times that is always the right choice. When everything else has failed, when we don't quite know which way to turn, when even the good choices we made before now don't seem to hold any promise, there's one choice that we can make that always, always pays off.
To look at that choice we're going to spend some time over the coming days with a man who had more of those dark times than most of us and he wrote a lot about it. The one place we're going to go is to take a look at what he learned and he records that in Psalm 34. It's an interesting psalm, it comes out of King David's life and it's his praise for deliverance from a time of trouble. So it's a psalm written, if you like, with the benefit of hindsight.
David's been in a tough dark place and his learned something, he's learned something about God in a dark time. Now we're not quite sure when that time was, the introduction to the psalm says:
A psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech so that he drove him out and he went away.
Now we don't have any other historical information about that situation. Abimelech was a judge, a leader of Israel, Gideon's son.
The fact that we don't have the exact historical details however doesn't really matter. The fact that David had to engage in this deception tells us that it was a fearful time, it was a scary time, it was a time when he needed to escape. Now let's have a listen to the first part of this psalm as David reflects on that dark time, it's Psalm 34, verses 1-8. This is what he writes:
I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips, my soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look at Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called and the Lord heard him, He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see, the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.
See David is looking back on some hard times and he starts out by praising God for His faithfulness with the specific purpose of letting the rest of us know that God is faithful in the dark times. With a specific purpose, of us who are afflicted, being able to hear this and rejoice. This psalm was written for you and for me:
My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
You see David's saying here, "You know why I'm writing this psalm? It's for you, if you're afflicted, if you're travelling through a dark and fearful time, you know what? Come and look at what God did for me."
Glorify the Lord with me (says David) let us exalt His name together.
In other words, so that you and I can rejoice together in our dark times we're getting the benefit of what David discovered in his darkness, in his fearful times and what he discovered is as profound as it is simple. Look at verse 4:
I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears.
Darkness and fear seem to immobilise us. Fear somehow stops us dead in our tracks, we just kind of sit there and we ache, and fear eats away at our hearts kind of like a quick spreading cancer and in that fear. Remember David was, as he had been many times before, in fear of his life. This was real fear, let me say it this way; deadly fear and in the midst of his deadly fear, he did the thing that he had learned to do over and over and over again all those times in his life when he'd been in danger.
When he was on the run from King Saul for all those years he sought the Lord, he cried out to God, he said, "God, help!" The one thing we can forget to do when we're frozen by fear is to do exactly that, to seek God, to cry out to God and what a surprise; God answered him and delivered him from all his fears.
I don't know about you but I can relate to that, in life and in ministry I come up against giants of opposition all the time and can I tell you, some days they scare me, seriously scare me and we have a choice; we can sit there and tremble in fear, we can be completely immobilised or we can spend time with God crying out to Him in prayer, reading His word, listening to Him and He always delivers me from my fears. David goes on to say this in verses 5 and 6 of that Psalm:
Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him, he saved him out of all his troubles.
There it is, there's that "light" word; radiance:
Those who look to Him are radiant.
The Hebrew word that sits behind our English translation means literally "to beam" or "to burn with light". It's an over the top kind of word, it's not a glow or a flicker or just to shine but to beam and to burn with light.
Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
See in those dark times we're down cast, we're in a sense ashamed if you like but David states this incredibly simple truth. He said:
This poor man called and the Lord heard me. He saved me out of all my troubles. (He delivered me from all my fears)
This is such a humble and beautiful picture isn't it? David, possibly the greatest king that Israel ever had, saw himself just as some poor man who cried out to God.
Don't you love how the Bible is packed full of this, this real life stuff, this stuff that's right down where we are? The word of God meant for us, here and now right where the rubber hits the road. Light, radiance in our darkness and in our fear and all this out of a simple step that David took, so simple and yet when we fear for our lives, so difficult.
I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.

When you're travelling through those dark patches in life – as we all do – the most important thing you need to know is that God is in the Light business – and He's right there in that dark place with you!
You may hear me talk about the stars in the sky from time to time and that's because they just fascinate me. There are so many and they're so huge and so far away, the universe is utterly incredible. The scientists tell us they estimate that there are at least a trillion, trillion stars, well what does that mean?
Lets just start with a billion, do you know how long it would take to count to a billion, once each second; one, two, three. Well a billion seconds is 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours and 48 minutes. That's a billion.
Now a trillion is a thousand billion, that means that a trillion seconds is a thousand times as long. That makes a trillion seconds, 31,688 years, 32 days and few hours. Isn't that incredible? And that is just one trillion. Now a trillion times that 31,688 years and 32 days and a few hours which would make it a trillion, trillion, seconds is just an inconceivable length of time isn't it? And I'm just talking humble little ticks of a clock – seconds.
But now look out at the universe and consider there are a trillion, trillion stars out there at least, massive balls of fire and they're just the ones we know about.
You can tell I love astronomy and mathematics can't you, so why this dissertation on astro-physics? Well simply this; this week we're taking a look at the dark patches we can go through in life, the difficult times, the times of depression or fear or loss or loneliness or financial crisis or retrenchment or broken relationships or sickness. That list that is seemingly endless in life and when we go through those darkness's they are so dark aren't they? If God is God, where is He in those dark times, huh? Exactly where is He?
This series of programs is called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" and today, today I just want to establish that no matter how dark the darkness gets, God is in the "light" business. I'm just going to read you the first 5 verses of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. It's the beginning; this is what it says:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light and God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day' and the darkness He called 'night' and there was evening and there was morning. That was the first day.
Now I might hear you say, "Well Berni that's well and good; you're talking about physical light here, that's fine but what about God shining His light into the darkness in my life?" We're going to talk about that shortly, the point that I'm making is this; creation tells us something about the Creator.
You and I create different things because we're different. You might be artistic, you might be able to draw or to paint and so given the opportunity to be creative, you'd produce this stunning picture. Ha, I can't draw for peanuts. You might be really good with your hands, maybe building things or maybe crafting things. Well I have ten thumbs when it comes to that. So what we create tells us something about who we are, it's the same deal with God. You look at what He creates and it tells you something about who He is.
In fact it's interesting to look at the order in which He creates, this God, and the first thing He creates, the very first thing is light because it was dark. That tells us something about God but what a light. We just think of the sun but that sun, as I said in the beginning of the program, is just one of an estimated trillion, trillion stars. In the greatest understatement in the Bible Moses writes in Genesis chapter 1, verse 16:
God made two great lights; the greater was to govern the day, the lesser was to govern the night. He also made the stars.
Ha, also made the stars. God is seriously into light and it tells us something about who He is and when you look at Him shining light into our lives there are so many references throughout the Bible about Him wanting to do that. I'm just going to look at 3 very briefly right now. The first is Ezekiel chapter 10 in verse 4:
Then the glory of the Lord rose up from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple and the cloud filled the temple and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of God.
Isaiah, in chapter 60 verse 19 says:
The sun will no more be your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you at night for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory.
And perhaps my favourite of all where Paul seems to bring it all together in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6. He says:
For its the very same God who said "Let light shine out of darkness" that made His light to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Can you see why I've called this little series, "Dark Night, Bright Light". Over these coming days I believe we're going to be transformed by Gods word about darkness and light.
I'm going to share with you again from my darkness; you know in life we all have them. Thirteen years ago I had a major one; I lost everything that was dear to me. I guess in life we end up with one or two or three major ones but then we have other smaller ones along the way that don't feel that small when we're going through them. Real pressure at work, it gets us down or interest rates go up and we can't afford our houses anymore and we have to sell.
You know all that stuff. And every time I have been through one of those darkness's, every time when I've turned to Jesus and poured my heart out to Him, His gentle light has began to glow in my heart. The longer things went on because we have to travel through that stuff, the darker it became out there the more brightly His love and His joy and His peace would shine in my life.
The sun will be no more your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you by night for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory.
Light is such a wonderful way to describe what happens when we turn to God in our darkness. I can't find any other word to put it than "light"; a warmth and a brilliance and a radiance that shines in our lives. If you've just been through darkness, if you're going through one right now, if you're going to go through one in the future the word of God is going to shine a light into that place. Dark Night, Bright Light.

When you're travelling through those dark patches in life – what you discover so often is that you're afraid of the dark.  Fear is a big deal in hard times.  And each one of us needs to know what to do about it.
We're starting a new series of messages on the program this week, a series that I've called, "Dark Night, Bright Light". I wonder what the word dark or darkness means to you? Darkness has all sorts of connotations when we apply it to our own lives. I remember when I was a young boy, even probably well into my teenage years, I was truly afraid of the dark.
At night after dinner in the dining room in the house where we lived it was what seemed like a long corridor to my bedroom, it was only 8 or 9 metres but when the corridor was dark, I tell you, it was a long scary way and I was afraid to walk from the light dining room into that dark corridor to my dark bedroom.
Now we were blessed because there was a light switch at either end of the corridor, at the dining room end and at the end where my bedroom was and I always, always used that light switch. Now don't get me wrong, we lived in a safe part of town and the house was secure so there was no logical or rational reason to be afraid of the dark, I just was and it was a very real fear.
It seems that darkness and fear often go together in life. Whether we're young or old the truth be known we actually need both, light and dark in this world. I love it when the sun goes down and it's time to go to sleep and again, when the sun comes up in the morning and it's time to get on with life. It's a pattern we live by, it's a cadence, a pattern of life but imagine if it were only ever dark how awful that would be. In some countries of course, far north and far south, there are many months of darkness in winter.
In life, darkness and fear, well they seem to be such common bedfellows. I guess that's because in the dark we can't see what's coming at us. I remember once when I was in the army and we were on exercise in a rainforest and the canopy of this rainforest was so incredibly thick that it was pitch black at night, you couldn't even see your hand 6 inches in front of your face. And in that sort of darkness you can't see what's coming at you, you can't see where you're going so darkness is a scary place sometimes.
Now let's take a look at our own lives. We can look back on the dark times, those periods that we'd rather forget, maybe a broken relationship or sickness or the death of a loved one, real financial difficulties. Maybe you've been through a war and you've seen people killed or you've been in prison. Perhaps you've seen everything you worked for so hard over so many years just go down the drain or someone's hurt you incredibly deeply, someone you trusted.
Perhaps you've been through a time of depression or real loneliness or working so hard you just don't feel that you have a life. The list just goes on and on and on, life has its dark times doesn't it? Maybe you're going through one right now, maybe, who knows, there's one right around the next corner or next year or the year after that.
Dark times, well they're like part of a fabric of our lives as much as we'd rather they weren't there and that's why we're kicking off this little series over the next couple of weeks called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" because light is the opposite of darkness and when we're travelling through those dark times, light is the very thing we need. The problem is it can be so hard to find, so hard to believe in or hope for.
You might only experience in those dark times, those lonely times, those times where I felt betrayed, the times of deep distress, it's a fear that's debilitating. It's like you don't even have the strength to lift up your head and look towards God. And hope. Well, when we lose hope it's a devastating thing because there's no sense of there being a future.
I once read a book about a holocaust survivor, Victor Frankel and he makes the point so powerfully when he recalls an experience from the concentration camp. Have a listen to what he writes:
The prisoner who has lost faith in the future, his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in his future he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate. We all feared this moment, not for ourselves which would have been pointless but for our friends.
Usually it began with a prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash and to go out on the parade ground. No entreaties, not blows, no threats had any affect; he just lay there hardly moving. If this crisis was brought about by an illness he refused to be taken to the sick bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up, there he remained lying in his own excrement and nothing bothered him anymore.
It's extreme but you recognise it, it happens to all of us sometimes. We give up, we have this sense that there's no future, no hope, just darkness, just the same. Why have we spent so much time describing the darkness today? I guess for me it helps to put words around it, it helps to describe what it is because this is something that we can all relate to.
Somehow we think it's just us but actually everyone goes through dark periods in their life, everyone. I have and you have and there are some real dark ones and then there are some that aren't quite so deep but they still rob us of the joy of living.
Tomorrow what we're going to see is that God, God is in the light business. Today I just want to share one passage with you from His word, the Old Testament book of Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 2:
The people walking in the darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
If you're walking in darkness at the moment I have a message for you from God, He plans to shine a light into that place. I remember the darkest days of my life, 13 years ago now, when I was completely alone. The darkness gets so inky black; the hole is so deep you can't imagine how you could possibly survive.
In the middle of all that a man, a pastor, a man called Ted Keating shared a message of Gods hope with me just the way I'm sharing with you today and from that little message I turned around and gave my life to Jesus and in the midst of that darkness a light began to shine, a light that was so bright, so warm. Later, later I discovered that Jesus once said:
I am the light of the world.
Well, He got that right; just the way Isaiah puts it:
The people walking in the darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

It's kind of embarrassing to have to admit sometimes that we've made a mistake. And even when it's the right thing to do – we still sometimes get mixed reactions.
Have you ever been dreading something, a trip to the doctor's or the dentist, or maybe a confrontation at work or a reunion after a broken relationship? You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, the sleeplessness the night before, the sweaty palms and cold fingers. But then when the time arrives it turns out so much better than we could ever have hoped. We look back on the event and think, "I just don't know what I was so worried about."
But before hand, the apprehension is so real, that's because we don't know how it's going to turn out, and in our not knowing state somehow we imagine six different terrible outcomes as though they're all going to happen at the same time. I wonder for someone wandering around in a spiritual wilderness, I wonder whether it isn't the same for them, when they look at God.
Whoever we are, wherever our journeys in life have taken us, we've all felt a sense of spiritual yearning. We may look at the glossy ads and the seductive images of success and prosperity and all those things. But it's empty, wandering out there yearning, like we're being called home. Something we can't explain but we look at God, we look at Jesus with a sense of apprehension because when we look at where we are, what we've done and admit our rebellion it's really hard to take a step on to that long road home.
Jesus knew that and we've been looking this week at a story that He told, the story about the prodigal son. I'm going to read it again for one last time today because it's a beautiful powerful story, and today when I read it we're going to include the ending because the ending is awesome. Here's how it goes:
A man had a two sons, the younger of them said to his father, 'Dad give me my share of the estate that I have coming to me.' So the father distributed the assets to them. Not many days later the younger son gathered everything he owned together and he traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything a severe famine struck that country and he had nothing. Then he went to work for one of the citizens of the country who sent him out into the fields to feed the pigs.
When he came to his senses he said. "How many of my father's servants have more than enough food and here I am dying of hunger. I'll get up and I'll go to my father and I'll say to him – 'Dad I've sinned against you and in your sight, I'm not worthy to be called your son anymore, but make me like one of your servants'."

So he got up and he went to his father but while the son was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion. Dad ran and threw his arms around the sons neck and kissed him and the son said to him, 'Father I've sinned against heaven and against you, I'm not worthy to be called your son anymore.' But the father told the slaves, 'Quick bring out the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it and we'll celebrate with a feast. Because this son of mine who was dead is alive again, he was lost and he's found.' So they began to celebrate.
It was a cycle that began with rebellion, that the notion that we all have that sometimes life should just be fun. I want to go out and let it all hang out and do it when it feels good and of course, reality set in, there was an impact. Ultimately the son of this wealthy farmer found himself starving working as a laborer feeding pigs in a foreign land. And when he finally came to his senses, when he made the decision to say, "Look at my rebellion, look at the impact that it's had on me and in my best interests it's time to journey home again."
But while he was still along way off, Dad was out there waiting and watching and straining and stretching his neck to see further, to see if his son was there, and when he was a long way off he sees his son and his heart is filled with compassion. He comes running out to meet him.
Do you think that's what the son was expecting when he was back there feeding Porky the pig on the pig farm starving? Do you think in his wildest dreams and imagination the son would have thought, "Dad will be out there watching and waiting for me. And when I come over the hill he'll race out and hug me and put a robe on me." Would you think he was expecting that? We know he wasn't. We know he was going back with an expectation of maybe getting a job as one of the servants just for food.
The robe is a symbol of honour, the ring is a symbol of the family signet - you belong to us. And the party with a spit roast was a barbecue; it was a celebration! Because "this son of mine who was dead is alive again. The one that was lost is found again." Not a word of condemnation, no scalding, total acceptance for no other reason than this boy was Dad's son.
Jesus is saying here, 'You have to understand something. This is what Dad's like, this is what God's like.' It's crazy, the son was there, we don't know how long he stayed starving feeding the pigs but I'm sure he spent time putting it off. All the time delaying with the apprehension of going back to his father and what that would mean. It's like us, all the time wandering in a spiritual wilderness and Jesus is saying, "No, no, don't you understand, don't you get it, this is what Dad's like. He's waiting on the road for you, he's straining, looking, can't wait to see you back with Him again." Dad, God, Jesus … "My son was lost and now he's found, my daughter was lost and now she's found."
What about you? Have you spent anytime wandering round in a spiritual wilderness, apprehensive about going home? Come on, what rebellion is keeping us from God? What is it that's stopping us from going back? Is it fear, is it embarrassment, is it this sense of 'well I'm not good enough?' Look at it, while the son was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion, he ran and threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. The son said to the father, "Dad I've sinned against you, I'm not worthy to be your son."
But the father told his slaves, "quick bring the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and slaughter the fattened calf and let's celebrate, let's party, my son's back." Now the older brother was out in the field and as he came near the house he heard music and dancing so he called one of the servants over and said, "What's going on?" And the servant said, "your brother's back and your father's slaughtered the fattened calf because he's back safe and sound."
This older brother became really angry and didn't want to go in so his father came out and pleaded with him but the son replied, "Look Dad I've been slaving my guts out here for years for you. I've never disobeyed you, I've never rebelled against you, but you haven't even given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who devoured your assets with prostitutes comes back you slaughter a fattened calf." And Dad says, 'Son, you're always with me, everything I have is yours, but we have to celebrate, we have to rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and he's alive again, he was lost and he's found.'
See when we're out in that wilderness we expect everyone including God to react like the older brother. That's why Jesus put the older brother in the story, that's how people react, they want to judge us, they want to condemn us. And the biggest thing he's saying here is God is not like that at all. God is the father on the road waiting for you, waiting for you to come back and be with him. That's the point

Sometimes, we come to the conclusion that decisions and choices we've made – just aren't working. But turning them around, well, it can be a long road.
For years, and years, and years, I wandered around in a spiritual desert. Now the crazy thing was that I'd been a Christian in my teenage years. But when I grew up, I rebelled and I came to the point where I kind of knew that there was a God but after all the things I'd done, after the years of wandering out there, I just didn't know whether He'd really want me back, and at what cost? What would I have to give up of the lifestyle that I was accustomed to, in order to have a relationship with him again? For me, as it is for so many people, the road home seemed like such a long one. And what would His reaction be when I turned up on His doorstep again anyway?
I remember as a child, I did something wrong after school, I can't remember what it was, but my Mother said to me, "You wait until your father comes home." And I can still remember, I must have only been about six or seven, or eight years old. I can still remember vividly the sense of dread, of waiting at home for the consequences when my Dad came home again. Do you remember that? I'm sure we've all had that experience.
This week on A Different Perspective we're doing a small group of messages that I've called The Long Road Home because so many people are wandering in a spiritual desert and the thing that often keeps us from turning around, and going to God in the middle of that. The one person that we're looking for, you know the one thing that can satisfy that longing that we have, the thing that so often stops us, is that sense of dread.
That sense of wondering well how is He going to react? Is it going to be like Dad punishing me when I was a kid? Jesus knew that, Jesus knows that. That's why he told a story, it's the story of the prodigal son, the lost son. We've been looking at it over this week on A Different Perspective. It began with a son's rebellion. Let's have a read of it again.
A man had a two sons, the younger of them said to his father, "Dad give me the share of the estate that I have coming to me." so the father distributed the assets to them. Not many days later the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate on foolish living. After he had spent everything a severe famine struck the country and he had nothing. And then he went to work for one of the citizens of that land who sent him out into the field to feed the pigs.
This son longed to eat his fill from the carob pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses he said, 'How many of my father's servants have more than enough food and here I am dying of hunger. I'll get up and I'll go to my father and say to him, 'father I've sinned against Heaven and against you, I'm not worthy to be called you son anymore, just make me one of your servants'." And so he got up and he went to his father.
It's a cycle that began with a desire to do it my way, with a desire to rebel, with a desire for partying and excitement, and all the stuff I guess that we look for as young people, and probably as we get older as well. But I wonder how much of this cycle parallels our lives. Whether you've never met Jesus before, you just have a sense of spiritual longing, or maybe, maybe once you walked with him, somewhere along the road either you wandered off, or he somehow seemed to disappear, or maybe you're trying to walk with him but in a certain area of your life, well there's something you're holding back.
Wherever we're coming from, the same symptoms of spiritual hunger, of emptiness, of something missing, of something not working is what so often people feel. And what happened here for this young man, is when he finally came to his senses, what he did was this. He linked his pain with the initial cause, which was his rebellion. So often we don't do that, so often we're suffering and yet we go on deluding ourselves that our choices are fine and everything's fine. Of course I can have an affair, of course I can live like this, of course I can reject God's view on A, B, C and D. And yet, if we're really honest with ourselves, if we really look at our predicament in our situation in this spiritual wilderness that so many people are walking through. If we're really honest, we can see that the pain and the symptoms come back to a rebellion.
I don't know what that rebellion looks like in your life, we all rebel in different ways but it's not rocket science to figure it out. And then this young man-made a pragmatic decision, a selfish decision, not some altruistic decision to say I'm going to go back to my father because my father is a wonderful man. It was a decision that was driven by the hunger in his stomach looking at these pigs day and night. And he made a decision in his best interests to start on that long road home.
We're not told in this story. It's a parable. It's a story that Jesus told to illustrate a point, the point of which we'll see in tomorrow's program. We're not told what the journey on the road was like; we know that this young man went to some far off distant country. How long was the journey home? Weeks, month's maybe-walking? He certainly couldn't afford to pay for a lift. So as he was trudging along the dirt road step by step, days went by.
On this journey, on this long road home, what was he feeling, what was he thinking, what was going through his mind? Well we're not told but we can have a fairly good guess – anger; "it's not fair; it's just not fair that it's worked out this way. Why was there a famine just when I was partying?" Maybe some remorse? "How can I be so stupid and waste all that money, and do that to my Dad?" We certainly know there was hunger; he had no money so he was living as best he could at a time of famine, off the land traveling home. What about the embarrassment? "What will my brother say? What will the other servants say?" His low expectations of his Dad; "oh I won't be taken back as a son, I'll go as a servant." His apprehension; "what will my Dad say, what'll he say?" And day after day walking the dusty road.
Whichever path we walk, I wonder whether sitting at the other end of that turn around decision, on the outer end of that lonely road back, we don't experience a similar cocktail of emotions, trudging through the wilderness, it's not working, it's time to head towards God. Look at them all; anger, remorse, hunger, embarrassment, apprehension – they're very human, they're very predictable, and so often they stop us even from trying. We start with good intentions to head back towards God, but our feelings get the better of us, and the gentle nudging and the calling that's been happening deep down somewhere in our spirits. Well, we just don't follow it through.
Tomorrow on A Different Perspective we're going to look at the end of Jesus' story. How it turns out, the whole point of what he was trying to say to anyone who's walking in a spiritual wilderness. But today, let's remember that sometimes when we take that decision, to turn around, to step out on that long road home, sometimes we can feel these things, and sometimes we want to pull off to the side of that road and stop, and give up – don't give up! Join me tomorrow as we look at the point of the story that Jesus told.