I recently discovered that the story of the prodigal son irritates me.
Here’s the issue: The son who runs off, wastes all of his money on “wild living” (that’s actually the phrase the NIV version uses), and comes home groveling, gets the feast. Meanwhile, the “good” brother who is working in the fields when his brother shows up, gets nothing special. This brother is so ticked off, he won’t even go in the house.
He says to his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15:11-32, NIV).
Can you relate? I certainly do.
I had not realized how I identified with that grace-less brother until I read Emily P. Freeman’s Grace for the Good Girl. And it’s not just the brother that makes sense to me, it’s Martha too.
You know that story about the two sisters, Mary and Martha, in Luke 10? Martha’s so excited that Jesus has come to their house that she’s hustling all over the place, cleaning and cooking and trying to please Jesus with her best. And there’s Mary, doing nothing. Well, she’s sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening, but she’s not being very productive in her sister’s eyes. So Martha gives Jesus an earful, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
Yes, I relate to the prodigal’s brother and to Martha. They both were doing “good” things. They were both trying to please. But in both stories, Jesus is saying, “You’re missing the point.”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
What’s that one thing? What she’s missing?
Grace.
That’s what God keeps showing me. My whole life I’ve been a pleaser. And doesn’t pleasing God sound like the best possible thing? Isn’t that what the prodigal’s brother was doing, pleasing his father? Isn’t that what Martha was doing in her own way, trying to please Jesus?
But as Freeman writes, all that pleasing and striving usually means that we’re missing something essential. We’re missing out on the opportunity to receive, to remain, to remember God’s grace.
“Given the choice to please God or to trust God, good girls become conflicted. We know we’re supposed to trust God, but trust is so intangible. It almost seems passive in the face of all there is to do … Choosing to please God sounds right at first, but it so often leads to a performing life, a girl trying to become good, a lean-on-myself theology. If I am trying to please God, it is difficult to trust God. But when I trust God, pleasing him is automatic,” states Freeman.
For us to try to add to what Jesus has already done, the salvation He already has given us on the cross is impossible. It’s like getting into a car and holding your backpack in your lap because you don’t want the car to have to carry it. Guess what…the car’s got it. Jesus has got it! You don’t have to keep carrying everything around. You don't have to do it all in your own strength.
Grace is amazing. I look forward to learning more in our new series! Watch the first message.