In leaving home, the prodigal was taking an enormous risk. If a Jewish boy squandered his inheritance and dared to come home, Bailey tells us, the entire community would greet him by breaking a large pot and crying out that this young man was “cut off from his people.” After that, the boy was an outcast, invisible to everyone. This was the risk the younger son was taking; if he lost his money, he lost his name. There were no second chances.5

Surely, the prodigal knows this as he bundles his money together and hits the road. He’s doubling down on a risky future, burning the only bridge he has ever crossed. But he does just that. He takes his portion of the family wealth and walks away.

The father lets him go; there’s no hint of pleading, of retaliation, of angry shouting, though any or all of these things were to be expected. The father might simply have refused the insulting request: “I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened, and hope that you come to your senses.” Instead, the father absorbs the pain of his son’s rejection. His father-heart is broken, but he loves his son. He always has and he always will.

The English evangelical philanthropist Hannah Moore, a friend of William Wilberforce, wrote, “Love never reasons, but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles then lest it has done too little.”6

Just as the prodigal’s father was wounded by his son’s rebellion, our heavenly Father is wounded by our sin and rejection of Him. You may think you have sinned away your place in God’s heart, but that cannot happen. Like the father of the prodigal, He will never stop loving you.

God Loves You When You’re Walking Away from Him

And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, [and] journeyed to a far country…

—LUKE 15:13

It was just a few days after making his outrageous request that the prodigal pulled up stakes and left. Luke says that he “gathered all together” (15:13). In other words, he took what his father had given him, liquidated it into cash, and left. More than a few commentators have suggested that, because he was in such a hurry to leave, he was probably forced to sell what was his for a price way below its value.

The people of the community—the neighbors, farmhands, and servants—were probably shaking their heads in disbelief. “How can this father allow his son to disgrace him and bring such reproach upon his family? He just gave him everything he asked for and watched him walk out the door! He should have rebuked him publicly. Instead, he played the fool and granted his request.”

In his book The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen shows that the prodigal was turning his back on more than just home. He was arrogantly dismissing all that was good: