Stop Feeling Shame About Your Past

We know it as “The Prodigal Son” story—the experience of a young man who talked his father into giving him his portion of the inheritance, which he immediately took into a far-off country, wasting it on “wine, women and song.” Only when his money ran out did he admit his mistake and decide to return home to ask mercy of his father. While his father totally forgave him and put on a big party to celebrate the return of his wayward son, the boy’s elder brother offered him no such mercy. Bible teacher F. B. Meyer noted,

“What a blessing it was for the prodigal son that he did not meet his elder brother before his father! Had the two…met face to face in the field, it is certain that the ragged wanderer would never have gone another step. His brother would have rebuked him for…wasting his [inheritance] and coming back in so disgraceful a state. Assuredly he would not have killed the fatted calf, as his father did, but he would have killed all hope in that sad and sin-stained soul.”

Dr. Meyer continues, “But mercifully, the prodigal first met his father, whose heart had never ceased to yearn for him, and whose eye…still [scanned] the road along which that prodigal child had gone. Was there [scolding] mingled in his look or tone? Never! Not a word about the long absence, … the wasted wealth, the wild… life! Only the warm rush of his father’s love.”[1]

Remember, it was Jesus who related this story—Jesus, who knew His Father’s loving heart and knew that Father God would forgive any repentant sinner no matter the extent of his sin. Are you feeling shame for your past? Let God’s loving heart give you forgiveness today.

[1] F. B. Meyer, The Present Tenses of the Blessed Life (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, Inc., 1965), 77.