Thursday – Love Does Not Keep a Record of Wrongs

Thursday – Love Does Not Keep a Record of Wrongs

Luke 15:11-32

‘…We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’

Nowadays, it seems like a person can find out almost everything about someone else online. Between Google searches and Facebook profiles, there is information on nearly everyone. It is to a point that folks go out of their way to opt out of information tracking systems, and try as hard as they can to keep their personal information to themselves. I recently read a novel where the author imagined a not-so-distant future in which everything everyone did was public knowledge, with every angle of the world being recorded and streamed and monitored, so that everyone was ‘transparent’. Needless to say, it was a somewhat unsettling story.

There is a fear we have at having our information out there for anyone to access. Surely, identity theft has become a legitimate threat, but even beyond that, we are reluctant to expose our pasts to people, because many times when we think about our past, we zero in on our mistakes, our missteps, and our poor decisions. When we think about the past, even amidst a slew of happy and joyous memories, a regret can stand out like a fly in a glass of milk. It seems like the good times in our lives have almost as many times we’d rather forget. Times when we said the wrong thing, or showed up too late, or didn’t stand up for ourselves when we should have.

We are afraid and embarrassed by these histories because they remind us of our humanity, of our finitude, and of our imperfection. Somewhere deep down we might even believe that these past decisions and choices make us somehow lesser than, or unworthy of love. This was almost certainly what the Younger Son felt when he was journeying back to his father’s house, hoping the father would be merciful enough to treat him like a slave. It is this misguided expectation of unworthiness that make the father’s embrace so powerful. Just when he thought he could not escape his bad decisions, he felt his father’s arms wrapping around him, and the cloak on his shoulders and the ring on his finger.

The story of the father and his two sons tells us something very powerful and even controversial about love: that it does not keep record of wrongs. The older son’s indignation brings this out all the way, when he protests his father’s celebration of the younger son. Many times we like to identify more with the older son, who follows the rules. However, if we are truthful with ourselves, we can see how we have become the younger son, returning to our Heavenly Father after a long stint of wayward wandering. May we continue to experience God’s gracious love, which does not count our wrongs against us, and remember to extend that grace to the other prodigal sons and daughters all around us.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we are truly prodigal. We have turned away from you, squandering our inheritance. We ask for your gracious love that keeps no record of our wrongs, and instead rejoices when we find our way back home. Help us to treat others with a similar love, which sees people for more than the sum total of their mistakes. We praise you for the grace you give us to give to others. Amen.

-Zach Hutchinson