Forgiveness Comes Sooner Than We Think

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the prodigal son decides that he is going to go back to his father and beg for forgiveness. His father never gives him the chance to beg or apologize or even say hello. While he was still a long way off, his father ran to him and embraced him. His father didn’t even wait to feel how sorry he felt or his plan to try to make amends for what he had done. He just scooped his son up in his arms, put a ring on his finger and the best robe and sandals on his feet and called everyone over for a celebration. We may be hesitating to repent and ask for forgiveness because we are dreading that confrontation.  We might fear that God is going to hold up a list of grievances a mile long and point out for each one exactly where we went wrong and what we should have done differently and what He’s going to demand that we do to make it right. But the reality is that God forgives us so much sooner than we dare imagine.In the story of the Prodigal Son, the father forgave his son perhaps even as soon as he was handing over the portion of inheritance over to him, but he didn’t get the chance to tell him that until his son finally came back home. Far more often it is God waiting on us to come to ourselves and turn around and try to come back to Him, than it is us waiting for God to forgive us. God has already forgiven us long before we have even thought about forgiving ourselves. We may not know that right away because we are so far away, but as soon as get even a long way off, God will come running to us to sweep us up in the arms of His love and forgive us utterly and completely.