I grew up on the south coast of the UK my father, a naval officer (a mustang) and my mother, a ‘council house’ kid.

I inherited their values . their knowledge of good and evil and this was my ‘ pigsty’ and my cage  and like the prodigal I had a decision to make,

I could continue to wallow in the muck of my inherited values, or I could choose to leave the pigsty and, like the prodigal, branch out anew.

But there is a trap here for there is nothing new under the sun, the Prodigal has to decide to follow the Way to his Father’s house, but not as a ‘son’ but as a servant;   a servant is at the beck and call of the Master and carries out the Master’s will following only the way that the Master dictates.

This is maybe the most important message of the parable and of life;  the need to do things Yah’s Way and not our own way.

Adam was thrown out of Eden because he chose his own ‘godship’ (the ability to judge good from evil) over Yah’s Godship, if the prodigal had not humbled himself Yah could not have met him from afar and he would have wondered erratically instead of being firm and steadfast in following the Way of Yah.

A man cannot serve two masters even if one of them is himself and his own godship.