HomeWord - Oct. 17, 2006

A Fresh Look at an Old Story 
This devotional was written by Robin Dugall

Sometimes, you have to get a good second look at something to really take it in and have it change you.  I grew up in the “big city.”  Until I was a teenager, the greatest amount of wilderness I ever experienced was the little city park down the street.  I thought I knew what a forest was until I actually walked the Redwood Forest north of Eureka, California.  I needed a fresh look!  I also thought I knew what a “mountain” was when I went sledding at a park down the street.  Little did I know at the time that the big mountain was little more than a bump in the earth compared to the Tetons in Wyoming.  I needed a fresh look.  In many people’s journey with Jesus, the Bible often becomes stale because of the familiarity we have with the stories.  The way out of the predictability of reading the Bible is to surround yourself with fresh looks at familiar passages.  Below is one I discovered recently.  See how the story affects you when you take a fresh look:

The Prodigal Son Parable in "F"
Feeling footloose and frisky, a feather-brained fellow
forced his fond father to fork over the family
finances. He flew far to foreign fields and frittered
his fortune feasting fabulously with faithless
friends. Finally, facing famine and fleeced by his
fellows in folly, he found himself a feed-flinger in a
filthy farmyard. Fairly famished, he fain would have
filled his frame with the foraged foods of the fodder
fragments left by the filthy farmyard creatures.
“Fooey,” he said, “My father's flunkies fare far
fancier,” the frazzled fugitive found feverishly,
frankly facing facts. Frustrated by failure and filled
with foreboding, he forthwith fled to his family.
Falling at his father's feet, he floundered forlornly.
“Father, I have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited
family favor.”

But the faithful father, forestalling further
flinching, frantically flagged the flunkies. “Fetch
forth the finest fatling and fix a feast.” But the
fugitive's fault-finding frater frowned on the fickle
forgiveness of the former folderol. His fury flashed.

But fussing was futile, for the far-sighted father
figured, such filial fidelity is fine, but what
forbids fervent festivity? The fugitive is found!
"Unfurl the flags, with fanfares flaring! Let fun and
frolic freely flow!" "Former failure is forgotten,
folly is forsaken! And forgiveness forms the
foundation for future fortitude."

--Author unknown      

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GOING DEEPER:

1. How does this fresh look at a familiar story change your perspective on the prodigal son?  Does it help you in making the Bible come alive in a new way?   

2. What other areas of your walk with Jesus might need a fresh look?  What other Bible passages could come alive if you read them in a different translation than the one with which you are familiar?

FURTHER READING:

Try reading all the parables in Matthew 13 in a new translation (one you haven’t used before).

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