[Jesus speaking]
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. “Your brother has come,” he replied, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.”
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered 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!”
 “My son,”the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

–Parallel verses:
‭‭Luke‬ ‭6‬:‭45‬ ‭ESV‬‬
[Jesus speaking]
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

At one time in my career, I had gained a lot of success in my job. I was younger then and took much of the credit for this success myself (though it was mostly the Lord’s doing). After four short years in a new career, I had the highest new business sales for recurring revenue and the largest account in the office. I was living on “cloud nine.” Then everything seemed to come crashing down. The manager in my office unethically tried to give my large account to our Seattle office, the stock of our publicly traded brokerage crashed in value, and they closed our office. The subsequent chain of events left me out of work. Then, after starting my own company, the economy crashed and then I had to close my company and was in a lot of debt. It took seven years to pay off this debt. Later on in life, I ran into this manager who seemed to, by his greedy and evil behavior, start the ball rolling on my financial misfortune. And I was incredibly angry at him. Most would agree with me this was “justified”, but in my heart I knew God wasn’t pleased.

I think to truly understand the older son’s position in this passage, we have to understand the trials and tribulations he went through. When his younger brother left and demanded half the inheritance, the father might have had to go into debt to pay him, who knows? The older brother probably had to work harder and pick up the slack. They had to go without some of the comforts of life while the younger brother was living “high on the hog” and squandering the family name and fortune.

So I can relate to the older brother’s anger and frustration. But I have learned, as this brother needed to, that anger and bitterness are a trap of the evil one. This world is not our home and wealth or success in this life, though a fine side ambition, is not our God-given goal. The reality is, God cares more about the condition of our hearts than what is fair and right. He allows us to go through challenging and sometimes crazy situations we cannot understand to grow our love.

The Father was not only welcoming the younger brother but teaching the older brother a valuable lesson: Rejoice in redemption and salvation whenever it presents itself. Let go of your rights and bitterness as you will be filled with joy!

Lord, help me to see the beauty in the broken people around me as they see the beauty in broken me. May I look for what may be given to their credit and not focus on pointing out their mistakes. And teach me to remember more and more, in the moments of life, that you have redeemed me too!