Running to Meet You

Running to Meet You

A father in a small Texas town had not spoken to his son in seven years — since a bitter argument and a door slammed in the night. The son had gone, made choices that deepened the divide, and finally found himself with nothing. Ashamed and broken, he drove home without calling. He had rehearsed a speech: 'I'm not asking to be your son again, just your employee.' He turned onto the old road leading to the farm — and from the field his father saw the car. He had been watching that road for seven years. He ran. He didn't wait for the speech. He ran. The son barely got the first sentence out before his father was shouting for a celebration. 'That story,' the son said years later, 'is just Luke 15.'

The parable of the prodigal son has been called the greatest short story ever told. But its most stunning detail is the running father. In first-century Middle Eastern culture, it was undignified for a patriarch to run — robes would have to be gathered, and running was considered beneath a man of standing. The father doesn't care. He has seen his son 'a long way off' — which means he was watching, regularly, from a distance, hoping. He runs to cover the ground between them before the son can finish his rehearsed speech of unworthiness. This is your Father. He is not waiting with crossed arms and a list of conditions. He is watching the road. And when you turn toward home, He runs.