What did the Prodigal Son’s Father tell his Friends?

The son left home. He took his part of the fortune, both literally and figuratively distancing himself from the safety and love of home and family. By his own choice he rejected his father’s love and care to instead seek what he thought would bring happiness and fulfillment.

What did the father tell his friends?

They must’ve asked, wondered, whether through curiosity or concern.


"Hey, haven't seen that younger boy of yours around..."  
"What's up with your boy...is everything ok?"
Where has your son been keeping himself, haven't seen him?"

What did the father say?

The text doesn’t tell us (Luke 15:11-32).

Here is my speculation.

1.       I love my son, and his departure has broken my heart.

2.       Our home and heart are open and ready to welcome him back,

       should he choose to return.

3.       Yahweh models my role in this, and I want to live it out.  His non-negotiables help inform what mine are. His sacrificial, merciful, unending love exemplifies my pursuit of restoration and steers my own heart in this.

4.       Can you join with me in prayer that God would care for, watch over, direct, and restore my son?

5.       Can you join with me in prayer that God would care for, watch over, protect and guard my heart in this, as well?

If these additional questions are asked, he may have replied:

1.       Is he lost forever? An infidel (unbeliever)? I don’t know and God hasn’t given me that burden to carry. Mine is simply to love, lead, be faithful and winsome in living out God’s love. Can you help me live out 1 Corinthians 13 that says love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…”?

2.       Do we cast him out and write him off? Nope, that’s God’s job. And even God is portrayed as the Good Shepherd who goes out after the ONE sheep that is lost, leaving the 99 to rescue the one that has strayed.  God does sometimes (rightfully so) cut one off, but this judgment is in his time, his wisdom, and he is ever patient and persistent in his pursuit of the lost.  I will mirror this, and leave ultimate judgment to God.

3.       Aren’t you angry, isn’t it unfair, shouldn’t you draw the line and shout loudly “You are outta here until you see what is right, dude!”?  Mercy triumphs over judgment. Both have their place, but micromanaging God’s judgment by taking in my hand when  & how he intends his own to work…that is ineffective, short-sighted, pridefully self-reliant, and just ludicrous! 

4.       Isn’t there a call for you to do ‘tough love’? Holding to the line on God’s non-negotiables is the benchmark for this tough love, and we won’t back down. Holding to our own lines of what’s ‘fair’, ‘reasonable’, maintains our own rights, defensive, or what insures our comfort in loving…well, that’s not tough love, that’s just man’s definition of love. (Look at the cross for how much Christ insisted on what’s reasonable, sensible, or fair.)

5.       How can I help? Thank you so much for asking!! Pray (see #4 & #5 above). Also help me focus on the truths that keep me grounded:

1.  This is not the end of the story.
2.   God is at work and that means in ALL of us (maybe in me, perhaps others in my family who have sin/attitudes/self-righteousness that needs to be recognized? (hmm…isn’t there another son in this story?)
3.   My Son & this situation are not the most important thing in life –  God’s glory is!  
4. And help me….please help me not to wallow in the muckiness of now so that I lose sight of the glory of the big picture and the BIG God who is in complete control!
5. My response to my prodigal son….who knows but that God may want my example to stand as a model for others, for future generations?!….not just for how fathers are to respond to wayward sons, but to mirror the incomparable, unstoppable, unimaginable wonder of the love of Father God!  (Not sure how that would work,or why my little story would matter to anyone or how it could be preserved for centuries to come, but hey…God can do anything. He could find a way. He is supernatural. )

Hmmm….what might the mother of the prodigal son have told her friends around the water well the morning after her son left?