I Am the Eldest Son

My mom just finished reading The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller with her small group, and my pastor talked about the concept today at church; I can be dense at times, but I’m getting the hint from God that I need to think on this topic a bit.

The full version of the story can be found in Luke 15:11-32, but most of us know the story well enough or are too lazy to look it up, so let me recap the major details:  A guy had two sons, “A” the eldest and “B” the youngest; “B” wanted his inheritance early, squandered it, returned home with his tail between his legs and his dad threw a party for him; “A” stayed at home and played the good son and was pissed off when “B” came back. 

The younger son gets all the attention, probably because the story is mostly about him and Sunday School teaches us not to be like that kid, but if we are, God will still take us back.  While I can sympathize with elements of the story, I’ve always applied it to others and not myself.  I never went through an extremely rebellious phase, I’ve always been good with money, and I never wanted to leave home (look where that got me…).  Perhaps this is why God has brought the story back to my attention from a different angle.

I am the epitome of the eldest son… well, what he represents anyway… obviously I’m not a boy, I come from a large family, and I’m the youngest, but I digress…  There’s a lot of joking in my family about how I’m the "favorite daughter" and the "perfect child".  My parents are proud of me.  I have avoided many of the pit-falls that my siblings found.  I obey my parents (for the most part), I’m a hard worker,  I read my bible and speak “Christianese” and help at church, I do my best to lead a biblical life, I read Christian books and attend conferences on how to love God and people better…  To borrow a phrase from a dear friend, I have become a “human doer” not a “human being”.  And to be honest, sometimes I get a little miffed when a new believer gets more attention than me when I work so hard to be such a good Christian.  When I really focus in on the story of lost son in the bible, I find myself empathizing with the older son when he lays into his dad about never being celebrated and how unfair it is that his younger brother gets all the attention for being bad.  I do an internal fist pump and a think, “Yeah! Preach it brother!”.

But this story isn’t about life-style choices, it’s about our hearts.  The father didn’t possess the hearts of either of his sons in the beginning.  Through losing everything, the younger son realized all he truly wanted was the heart of his father and for his father to have his.  Through maintaining everything, the eldest son didn’t realize what he lacked.

I don’t want to be the eldest son.  I don’t want to miss my Father’s heart, nor do I want to withhold mine from Him.