The Vindicated Prodical

The story of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15 is one of the most popular Bible stories out there and we would probably lose count on how many times it has been preached from different perspectives. To sum up the story, the younger of the two sons gets sick of living at home, so he demands his inheritance and leaves the family. After a time of living it up and reckless abandonment, he is out of money in a far far away place. To he decided to get a job feeding pigs (which for a good Jewish person, that is blasphemy) and after awhile of feeding and eating what the pigs ate, he game to his senses. He would go home and be one of his fathers hired hands, because they had it better than he did. When he almost got home, his father came out runningnot only greeted him, but had a long embrace. The son was restored to full sonship and he was a part of the family. The older brother had a tantrum because the dysfunctional brother not only came home, but was restored member of the family and there was a party.

I just wonder how many of us carry the attitude of the older son. It is the attitude of making sure everyone stays happy and we do not do anything wrong and we stay on the straight and narrow. The problem with the older brother, like a lot of us is that we are not children but slaves. Being a slave has several destructive tendencies that will keep us a slave if we do not over come them. The first one and I think the most important one to over come is vindication. A person who has a slave mentality is that they always have to be proven right and are always justifying what they do. This attitude is that there is always an explanation for what they did or didn't do, or place the blame on someone else. They are willing to do or say anything or nothing as long as they can justify it and it helps them sleep at night. Whether its justifying crappy eating habits because they claim that they don't have time or the money to eat healthy. This type of justification is based on our own standards or our interpretations of certain standards. Other people can do what they want, just as long as people fit things into your standards and justifications.

When we start using our own justifications to live life, we are going down a winding path that often leads to no good. When our own standards and heart are corrupt, it is really hard to come up with healthy ways of living when its coming from a broken person. It is like trying to turn out an award winning apple pie with rotten apples, it just doesn't happen.

Another problem with having the slave mentality is the concept of trying to play catch up or hooking yourself to the latest whim or bright idea. I am not saying that all the latest fades or whims are bad, but trying to play catch up can be exhausting. If and when the idea fails, we often sit in shambles because we don't know how we got there. One of the problems with this mentality, is that we are prone to not having a backbone. Going from whim to whim often shows a lack of planing and a lack of integrity/backbone because we either don't plan things out, or we are to stubborn to change our ways .

One of the biggest areas that I see where a person with a slave mentality comes from is seeking people's approval and wondering if they are making a difference. This often comes from two different sources. The first one is that we are to blind to see the big picture and we have tunnel vision. We just see what is in front of us. The second issue is that we are not willing to grow up and deal with our own issues. We either minimize our problems and say that they are not that bad and that everyone has problems. At least with me, I do enough reflection, but putting into practice to make those changes is hard. A slave does not want to admit that there is a problem or the severity of the problem. Therefore the problem doesn't change, because one does not want to put in the hard work to make it change. We are comfortable in our own little bubble and in all honesty, we enjoy sitting and our own crap where we don't want to change. With this mentality, we often wonder if we are ever making an impact and doing any good and I am comming to realize that the impact one is making is not as big as it could be if at all.

Or its not my problem its everyone else. The blame game often goes back to self justification and it is a terrible circle to get on and one that is very hard to get out of. Hopefully in the near future I can write about what it means to be a child

The Spirit of Adoption

The last two weeks in sports there have been some events that made me want to bang my head against the wall. The first was when the Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen made the horrific comments that he actually admired the dictator Fidel Castro. He later apologized and tried to explain himself. Secondly, if you go and have a motorcycle accident, make sure you tell your boss who was involved, especially if it was a female subordinate who just happened to be your mistress. Don't let him find out when the police report becomes public, and it makes you look like a liar and having something to hide. So now Bobby Pitreno is looking for a new job while trying to mend his broken family and the University of Arkansas is looking for a new head football coach

Bubba Watson happens to be the coolest person in sports right now (his name might have something to do with it :)). Not only has he won one of the most prestigious golf tournaments in the world (The Masters) without having a golf coach or never taking a golf lesson, he owns the original General Lee. For those of you who watched 1980's tv, The General Lee was the car used on the TV show The Dukes of Hazard. He happens to owns the original car that has the doors welded shut. I was a fan of the show and if it were on today I would still watch it. But the coolest thing about Bubba Watson is that not only he is a Christian, but him and his wife just adopted an infant boy. I heard an interview with him this week and he basically said that winning the Masters was cool and a great accomplishment, but there is more to life than winning a golf tournament. He got home late after winning the Masters and yet he was up two hours later to change a diaper. He has shared a little bit of the struggles that him and his wife went through in adopting and it didn't sound fun.

For those of you who know my family story, my sister and her husband adopted two children, and they are the greatest in the world. It is so fun watching them grow up in pictures and learning new things and doing some of the weirdest and most bizarre things. but they sure do make me smile. Here is an older picture of them When become apart of God's family we become adopted. I am reminded of the old Gospel song that this world is not our home and we are just passin through. When we are adopted into Gods family, this world is not our final destination. We have something better waiting for us and we are apart of something bigger than just ourselves or even our families, but it is global.

Throughout the New Testament, especially in the book of Romans and John's Epistles there is language that states that if we have accepted Christ as our Savior and turn from our ways, God gives us His Spirit and we are called sons (and daughters) of God and co-heirs with Christ. What this means, is that we belong to the Creator of the Universe. Romans 8 gives us several helpful and hopeful meanings to what it means to be adopted.

The first one is the greatest one of all. Since we have God's Spirit, our bodies may die, yet we live. Essentially the grave and separation from God for all eternity is no longer something we have to worry about. Through God's Spirit, we can put to death all of our destructive and bad habits and replace them with Godly ones. It is God's Spirit doing the work in us so that we no longer have to struggle with our earthly nature, but become a child of God and do things that are of God and move away from things that are not of God.

The second one and I think the coolest one is the idea that we no longer have to be slaves again to fear and timidity, but we can call God Daddy. Having a slave mentality often means a person is on the outside looking in and often live in fear. A slave often works to please God and so that He doesn't come down in anger on them. The more the slave can do right and the less they can do wrong, that means the master will like them more and the slave will be in better favor. Adoption moves that slave barrier, and it is not so much what we do, but who we are. (what we do is important, but it flows out of who we are and what we do does not necessarily define us)

Adoption means intimacy with God and that there are no barriers. This means that we know God and God knows us. We do not have to go to God out of shame or hanging our heads, but we not only run to Him with open arms, but we often sit on His lap. When one is adopted and their is that intimacy, their is no weird awkwardness. If you have ever been in same room or in a conversation with someone, and something is not right, or there are unresolved issues that need to be taken care of and they haven't been, that is awkward and I know it makes me cringe inside. Being adopted means that we can go to God with open harms and we also go to God when we have done something wrong and we take care of it and make it right. Being adopted means we get a new lease on life and that we can be called children of the most High God and we can lay claim and participate in the promises that He has given us