The Prodigal son of Luke 15 had no doubts as to his destination. It was, “Far Country, here I come!” With dreams to live and money to burn, everything was going to be better, beyond the constraints of home. In no time at all he found out that wild living looks cheap… until you must pay the price in full. With his dreams dead, and his money and options spent, the question, “Where from here?” was neither his to ask nor answer. No matter what the culture, a former rich boy looking longingly at pig food is a man who has reached absolute bottom. “Where from here?” had become solely about survival. Our wasteful son had come to his senses—Humility had set in! Now employment as a servant in his father’s house was more than he thought he deserved. He may not have been home yet, but he had as good as arrived.
Every man chooses his direction. Like our Prodigal, his lusts and desires will lead him into dark and demeaning places. But until he, like that son, realises that he has removed himself from the blessings of the Heavenly Father, he will remain in the Far Country.
Tragically, most choose to stay in the pigpen of life away from God. Jeremiah sums up the reason why: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
Ending up in a dark and demeaning place is the only way that some will come to their senses. As hard as it is to hear, that might be the only way that God can move that person to ask, “Where from here?”
No Christian wants anyone to suffer the inevitable consequences of staying the Far Country. Thus, we call all sinners home to the place where the Spirit of the Father abides—His church.
John Staiger
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