Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. Luke 15:13 ESV

Of all the parables that Jesus told, the one we call, “The Prodigal Son’” is likely everyone’s favorite. We love this story because at some point in our lives we have been (or maybe still are) that prodigal son. And though this wonderful story seems unique to Jesus, I was surprised recently when I began to see parallels with another young man, in the Bible whose name was Jacob. We usually think of Jacob, wrestling all night with an angel, or of His tricking his father into blessing him, by pretending to be his older brother Esau. But I have rarely thought of how, just like the prodigal, Jacob ran away from his family at a very tender age. Though, Jacob got to feed sheep while the prodigal was feeding pigs, Jacob still ended up doing hard and thankless work. Instead of the good life that Jacob had hoped for when he lied to gain his father’s blessing, Jacob ended up a thousand miles away herding sheep.

Why does any of this matter? Because, while the prodigal’s problems seem to be solved quickly in Jesus’s parable, our real-life prodigal problems take a lot longer to fix. Children run away and decades latter we are still praying for their return. Maybe we are the ones who have been running from God’s calling, and half a lifetime has passed us by. Jacob’s story of redemption spanned twenty-years and eight long chapters in the book of Genesis. From the very beginning though, God was watching over Jacob, long before Jacob was looking for God. While Esau, loved pleasing their father by bringing in fresh game from his hunting, Jabob stayed closer to home, working on pleasing his mother. When Esau came in from a hunting trip exhausted, Jacob showed no mercy and bargained for a better place in the family by selling his own twin brother a bowl of stew. Jacob was devious, willing to lie and unconcerned about the welfare of his brother, yet, the Bible says that God loved Jacob and didn’t give up on him. In that same way, If you have wept tears, and given up on praying for a prodigal in your family, know that God is still at work. God has ways of breaking through stubbornness, our pride and sin, not with harsh punishment, but by grace. Stay tuned for a surprising meeting in the desert, where Jacob first begins to hear the voice of God!