Embrace Our Unearned and Undeserved Forgiveness

Regarding the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Elder Gerrit W Gong in this last General Conference invited us to see ourselves in both of the sons mentioned in the tale. I was thinking about how sometimes as we act out the prodigal son's journey during the repentance process and come to ourselves and turn to our Father to seek Forgiveness, once our Father wants to celebrate our success, we switch roles to the other son and feel that it would be inappropriate to celebrate after the mistakes we've made. In other words, as much as we deeply desire forgiveness, we don't believe we are worthy of it, and while God wants to put a robe on our back and shoes on our feet and a ring on our finger and, in general, throw a big party that we followed the right path and made it home, we meanwhile arrogantly assume we know the proper amount of punishment that we deserve. First of all, we couldn't even begin to fathom the impossibility of us atoning for even one of our own sins. The price is so much higher than anything we could imagine. There's no scenario in which we earn forgiveness from God on our own merits. But that's never what it's been about. Our Heavenly Father is watching us from a long way off, and the minute we turn around and start to come back home, He starts running for us and sweeping us up in His arms, and crying tears of joy that though we were dead through sin and transgression, now we are alive once more through repentance and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. God wants us to celebrate our victories and embrace our unearned and undeserved forgiveness when He heaps it upon us.