TO A FAR COUNTRY

DAY 65 OF 365 IN 2021

Luke 15:13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

Whenever we look at the words of scripture, we realise that each one of them, each punctuation or conjunction is placed for a reason. Today, we read the parable of the prodigal son. While we are familiar with the text, a quick recap is that it tells the story of a young man who dared to ask for his share of inheritance while his father was alive and subsequently lost all of it while having ‘fun’.

If presented as such, all we perceive will be the image of a spoilt young man who had no appreciation for the things that actually mattered. Yet, it is an image God also wants us to see, how very similar we are to this prodigal son. A phrase that caught my eye while reading the text was ‘he gathered all he had and went to a far country’. Thus, I wandered why this choice and it hit me – to break free.

He probably thought that by increasing the physical distance between himself and everyone who could be an advisor, or  talk him out of situations, he would succeed in living his best life. Or so he thought because the situation he found himself in, was nowhere near ‘good’ to even speculate ‘best life’. When he alienated himself from any kind of counsel and became his own counsellor and guide, that was the start of all his trouble.

Beloved, of course you can travel to a far country with your inheritance, it is your possession. You can shield yourself from counsellors, however, where there is no guidance the people fall. But in abundance of counselors there is victory (Prov. 11:14). Not all counsel is useful, but there is a place and time to tap into the wisdom that others offer and not availing yourself to draw from such wells place caps and limits on how far one is guided.

#sly