Re: I was asked in Sunday School...

gosmitty · 2025-03-12T02:44:05.495Z

"Do you feel more like the Prodigal son or the Elder son?" Earlier in my life, I might have identified more with the Prodigal son. I was all about breaking rules and getting away from my parents & any authority figures, doin' my own thing. As I've aged, I'm more like the Elder brother, maybe too intolerant of other people. What about you?

I was asked in Sunday School...

CUintulsa®

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Mar 12, 2025, 3:08 AM

Agree. While none of us escape being the prodigal, the desire to earn one's standing is universal, which seems to be the imprint of the fall. So, yes, I think the more I understand myself, the more I see the older son.

Was at dinner tonight with a young couple. They have just found a sink hole. Underneath their house! Core samples have been dug, tests due back, but almost $10K has been spent just on diagnosis, and the fix is looking to be maybe 10 times that. This is not an expensive house, and they are not wealthy people, just young and getting started. Talk about anxiety inducing. This seems existential.

She said, "I was thinking today that somebody else might have bought this house. We are creative people, and we have some options for handling this, maybe even making it a positive. Somebody else might not have that. God was protecting somebody." I just stared at her, feeling about 2 inches tall. I have kids older than she is, and I had to memorize what I just heard, in hopes I could learn even a fraction of it.

So, yeah. The older, entitled one.

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Wow, that would be awful...

You know this, but I know this about you: No, you would not be a basket case. You would be like that young couple.

We think we won't be like them because we are not yet in that situation. It seems scary as a possibility. But they are in it, and they asked God to use them in this situation according to Romans 8:28-29. As a result, as promised in Philippians 4, He granted them the faith they need. When they needed it.

I admire them for it, and I think about them often. No, I don't want that to be me. But I know you would be like them if it should happen, and that I would be, too. I don't have to grow or mature into it. I just have to respond as they did. Jesus does the providing. I don't have to worry about that part of it. You've experienced it. Will again.

Both.

Re: I was asked in Sunday School...

I was asked in Sunday School...