Blog 3500 – 06.03.2025

Adventures In Self-Discovery

One of the recurring themes of this blog, http://www.theencouragingword.co, is that it is my belief that these stories, these lives of ours, are adventures in time and space that allow us again and again to find out Who and Whose we truly are. And that we willingly chose to be here in this time and in this place with it’s challenges to rediscover our true identity,

One of my favorite parables or stories is that of The Prodigal Son. It is a story about a young man’s journey to find himself. It is natural for young people to rebel against their parents and to want to strike out in their own. The cry of youth is “You don’t know me” when the truth is that most young people really do not know themselves yet. One of the greatest fear of young people is turning into their parents. Spoiler alert: A big part of Who and Whose we are is recognizing the resemblance we have to those who brought us into this life and loved us when we were too little to love them back.

There is a great line in the Prodigal Son story. It happened that after the young man wasted all of his inheritance on “riotous living” that he was forced to take the only job he could find, feeding another man’s pigs and that he was so poor and hungry that he even ate the pig slop. But at this very low point in his story we find the line, “He came to himself and remembered his father…” He decided to go home and ask his father if he could just be one of the hired hands.

His father had watched the road since his son left hoping for his son’s return and when he saw him a far off he ran to him, hugged his neck, and would not even hear his son’s job request but told his servants to kill the fattened calf for a welcome home party and to get a ring and robe for his son.

Remember that no matter how dark the night might seem and that even though you might have travelled far that each night always has one bright shining star to guide you home and to show you Who and Whose you are.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19CDkk3iq8QB_Ccty1QLes7I1EQ0_K7cX/view?usp=drivesdk

No Night So Long