“When he was yet a great way off…”

“But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”  Luke 15:20

This passage from the Prodigal Son parable jumped out at me this morning.  The prodigal son has run off with a portion of his father’s estate, “wasted his substance on riotous living,” run out of money, nearly perished with hunger, and then come to his senses – all except the running off with the money presumably unbeknownst to the father (though the father may likely have had an inkling as to the future).  I think it reasonable to assume that this passage comes some months, perhaps years, after the prodigal son headed the opposite way down that same road, leaving  his family behind.

Still, the father is looking down the road.  In those months/years that passed I can imagine that there wasn’t a day, perhaps an hour, that went by that the father didn’t look down the road with some form of pain, some form of regret, a wish for reconciliation welling up inside him.  He looked down the road hoping to see what he eventually saw – his son had come to his senses and was headed home.

 I am reminded of something I read once to this effect – if you feel distant from God, guess who moved!  I am of course not breaking new ground here, but today in this passage it occurs to me that any time I stray God is always looking down that road for me, waiting for me to return.