When You Feel Like the Older Brother

If you’ve been in the church for at least a few months, you’ve heard the story about the lost son. The prodigal son. It’s one of Jesus’ sermons, and it’s an analogy for The Kingdom of God. There are three guys in the story: the younger son, the father, and the older son. It’s a beautiful story about grace that leaves you feeling light and happy. Unless you’re like me and the character that represents you is the older son. The bitter, judgmental, hard to forgive, older brother.

When the younger son comes home, everyone celebrates. Well everyone except for his brother who refuses to go inside the party. The older brother is upset, because he didn’t get a party. He didn’t take his father’s money and waste it. He was faithful. He was busy slaving for his father while his brother got to live it up. And what does he get in return?

One thing I find interesting about this story is that we don’t know why the younger brother left in the first place. We know why he came home; there was a famine. But we don’t know why the younger son left. He just did, and his Father let him. He even gave him the means to do it.

I wonder if the reason why the older brother never went into the party was because he was confused. His head could have been swarming with the questions he thought of as he worked in the field day after day. Why did you leave? Why do you deserve to come back? Did you think about how this would affect me? He kept plowing, kept hammering, and as his questions grew so did his bitterness. As the older brother, we want a reason, an explantation. We’re ready for him to give us his best prepared speech, so we can tear it apart bit by bit.

After all of that time with his father, did he not learn anything from him? The explanation, the apology doesn’t matter.

Drop your why.

My roommate and I were talking the other night, and we were rephrasing questions to avoid asking why. We were talking about how counselors weren’t suppose to ask questions that start with why. I was instantly convicted. Maybe that’s not just a good practice for a therapist but for me as a daughter too.

If you read my journal, you’ll notice how many times I ask God why. Why did you let this happen? Why didn’t you stop it? Why do they get something I want and I don’t?Why isn’t this working out like I thought it would? Why is this taking so long? Why won’t you just tell me the answer already?

I know his thoughts are higher than mine, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to reach them. But with every why, my confusion grows and my heart gets heavier and heavier. Then the whisper tells me “Drop your why. You’re asking the wrong questions.”

You can trace our problem with wanting all of the answers back to The Garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I want to shake Eve and scream at her and tell her how silly she is. Adam and Eve didn’t need the knowledge of good and evil. They walked with God every single day. They knew him. They knew Good. “How could you eat it?!” I want to scream at them, until I realize I do it every day.

When your desire is for answers, understanding, and knowledge instead of life, “you will surely die.” Instead of walking with God, like an attorney I put him on the stand and demand he answers my questions. Sometimes God will answer my why. But instead of giving me peace, faith, or comfort, it often breaks my heart. And understanding doesn’t heal a heart.

The difference between the older brother and the father is that the father’s love is unconditional. The father doesn’t need a reason for why his son left and why he’s back. It simply doesn’t matter because his love for him was never based on that. He’s his son, and that’s good enough. He would rather be with his son then question him.

And this is great news for all of us older brothers out there. It means that our father doesn’t love us because we work for him. He loves us because we’re his. And the same father who rejoices over the lost son, goes to the faithful son. He pleads the same thing to the older brother that he does to us now. He begs him to come inside. But then the story ends. We don’t know if the older brother came inside to celebrate with his family or if he decided to sit in his confusion and bitterness. But I like that it’s left open. I like to believe a Father’s plea was enough to soften his heart.

So what happens when my father begs me? Does my heart get harder? Or do I drop the fruit before taking a bite? Do I choose to drop my why? Today I take a break from asking questions. Maybe later I will ask many. But for now, I hug my father back, go inside to the party, and celebrate the lost being found. Today I choose life over knowledge.

 

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