Prescribing Proverbs – RX 20
PRESCRIBING PROVERBS
August 20, 2021
A Proverb a day keeps Untruth away
Proverbs 1:1-6, ‘These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David’s son, Israel’s king—written down so we’ll know how to live well and right, to understand what life means and where it’s going; a manual for living, for learning what’s right and just and fair; to teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality. There’s something here also for seasoned men and women, still a thing or two for the experienced to learn—fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate, the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women.’ (MSG)
Prescription (RX) Twenty: the Prodigal
Proverbs 20:21, ‘If an inheritance is gained too early in life, it will not be blessed in the end.’ (TPT)
He’d had it with towing the line. He looked ahead to the future with dreaded assertation. His father had done well for himself, true, owning cattle on a thousand hillsides and what could be considered a mansion with many rooms by common folk. He had an abundance of employees who were faithful and honored him as master. Even his brother was pleasantly content, just hoeing the row and watching the days bleed one into another. He didn’t want that for himself, the life of a rancher, keeping the home fires burning at the homestead. His father was resourceful and successful by the nation’s standards. He wanted excitement and frenzy, the more chaotic the better. Once he began dreaming of freedom, that was all he could think about, until he was rash and sullen and narrow-minded.
It wasn’t easy summoning the courage from within to approach his father. He was more desperate, however, to swallow his dreams. They felt like an unleavened loaf of bread, tasteless and dense on his tongue, heavier still laying like a lump in his chest. On the day he commanded the bravery, he also bid all other emotion toward his family good-bye. You know, you can’t demand something that is going to topple aspirations, and remain friendly. A coldness blew through him like the winter wind through the barn. He couldn’t bear to watch the sadness creep into his father’s eyes as he searched his face to see if there was a punchline coming. His father shook his head and disappeared quietly into the vault, and when he reappeared, he had a satchel, old and moth-eaten, a purse with holes that bore simple patches. His father’s hands shook as he held out the loot, and the boy grabbed it, turning away quickly before he had to look at his father’s face. “If…,” his father began but he was gone like a rock flung from a slingshot.
The party was grand and endless, for ages, it seemed. He ignored the warnings of the growing unrest and famine in the country, focusing instead on his wealth of friends and booze, women and debauchery. If it was illegal and expensive, he sought after it. Whatever he fancied, it fell in his hands, but slipped through his fingers like sand on the water’s edge. He could never reach his fill, and all he pursued didn’t hold the grandeur he once fantasized of. It was never as he imagined. He had the finest of clothes but he could not warm himself, nor did the rich foods and lush wines ever satisfy. He was oh, so tired, but he sluffed it off like a kid with a winter coat. He’d rest someday; sometime, he’d catch up with himself.
And then it happened. Not what and when he chose, but when his inheritance did. He looked in the satchel, the threadbare one with patched holes wearing through, expecting to see it lined with bills but only a few coins remained as they clinked against each other, making a hollow sound. ‘That’s okay,’ he thought; he had provided the fun and the celebration since he arrived; ‘Surely my friends will return the favor,’ he mused. But they too were gone as quickly as he had arrived, gone like his dreams, gone like his money. Maybe it was a bad nightmare and he’d wake up soon, a raunchy hallucination from all the party and lack of sleep. But when he awoke, he found himself hungry and lost and nowhere to go.
His stomach ate himself he was so starved, and fear became palpable, the destitution like a worm eating its way through garbage. He found himself caught in a web he’d spun, and desperation clotted like blood in an open wound. By the next week, he sold himself to a pig farmer, forging his name as this disgrace his father could never know. Longingly he looked at the slop he threw out for the pigs, the smell gagging him but his hunger overcoming the stench. What had he come to? Not long ago, he was the pride of family, a future glittering with status and promise, and now; now it was gone, all dried up, the trust and hope like final drops of moisture dissipating in a hot, dry desert.
To be continued…
