Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation.\u00c2\u00a0 I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of.\u00c2\u00a0 While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether I will be truly welcome when I get there.\u00c2\u00a0 As I look at my spiritual journey, my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future.\u00c2\u00a0 I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, but I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, “grace is always greater.”\u00c2\u00a0 Still clinging to my sense of worthlessness, I project for myself a place far below that which belongs to the son.\u00c2\u00a0 Belief in total, absolute forgiveness does not come readily. . . .<\/p>\n
One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness.\u00c2\u00a0 There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes it even seems as though I want to prove to God that my darkness is too great to overcome.\u00c2\u00a0 While God wants to restore me to the full dignity of sonship, I keep insisting that I will settle for being a hired servant.\u00c2\u00a0 But do I truly want to be restored to the full responsibility of the son?\u00c2\u00a0 Do I truly want to be so totally forgiven that a completely new way of living becomes possible?\u00c2\u00a0 Do I trust myself and such a radical reclamation?\u00c2\u00a0 Do I want to break away from my deep-rooted rebellion against God and surrender myself so absolutely to God’s love that a new person can emerge?\u00c2\u00a0 Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing.\u00c2\u00a0 As long as I want to do even part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant.\u00c2\u00a0 As a hired servant, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay.\u00c2\u00a0 As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father.<\/p>\n
— Henri J. M. Nowen, The Return of the Prodigal Son:\u00c2\u00a0 A Story of Homecoming, <\/em>p. 52-53<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation.\u00c2\u00a0 I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of.\u00c2\u00a0 While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,21,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forgiveness","category-god","category-healing","category-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}