Disfunctional Family Or Disfunctional Son ?

Common Sense Commentary: When the "Prodigal Son" finally hit the bottom, Lk.15 says, "when he came to himself, he said .... I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." Who put him in that pig pen ?

A number of years ago, some Liberal psychiatrist began classifying the families of his patients as "dysfunctional". It became a professional sounding catch-all dumpster, into which they cast every family that was truly troubled as well as Christian families and other families with high moral standards their children didn't want to live by, and rebelled against. I quickly grew tired of hearing the term applied to some of the best families I knew of, which had a prodigal son or daughter. The assumption was, if someone was estranged from their family, sowing their wild oats, and wound up in the misery of a pig pen, it must be the parent's fault. They were a "dysfunctional family" because the prodigal said, "they were too strict" or some other excuse for his own out of control lust and actions. Its always easier to blame someone else for our own fleshly lusts and problems. I may have used the term once or twice, myself, but it sounded like a cop-out from "personal responsibility", to me. Well, I'm going to use it for the first time, in many years, here and now.

We have a dysfunctional government, led by a dysfunctional administration, appointed by a dysfunctional President, supported by a dysfunctional congress, filled with mostly dysfunctional people. So who is to blame .... their parents ? If so, their parents can turn and blame THEIR parents, and their parents can blame their own parents and on and on through the dysfunctional generations to Adam and Eve. So who do Adam and Eve blame ? Their Father, GOD ? Oh yeah, I forgot, "the Devil made me do it". In every generation, each individual "must give account for himself to God". Rom.14:12. The Prodigal son's father seems to have been a wonderful father, but he will have to "give account for" his own sins and mistakes, "to God". Similarly, our dysfunctional government is not the politician's parent's fault, no matter what they did. We will all "give account for ourselves to God". Practically everyone I know, who has several children, has at least one who goes "prodigal" for at least a few years if not many years. There are prodigal parents, of course, but their children must decide for themselves whether they will live for God or not. These prodigal, politically Liberal, offspring running our country are knee deep in the PPPPP (Prodigal, Political, Pig Pen Party) and are trying to drag the rest of the country in with them.

The only "HOPE" for these political prodigals is found in the example of the prodigal son. He grew up in a good home but grew tired of his father's "tried and true" work ethic and had a dreamy "HOPE" of a better way to "CHANGE" the farm and the world. So he turned his back on his family, the old ways that worked and looked to his dream, absolutely certain, positive, sure and convinced that he knew better than his experienced, mature, successful, generous, conservative, father. So he took the riches his family had worked, skimped and sacrificed a lifetime to save and he didn't look back. He would go out into the "New Age" future and feed all the hungry of the world, heal all the poor, sick and needy and "CHANGE" this cruel world according to his "DREAM". Then, everyone in the world would be proud of him for showing them how to spend money and miraculously turn lead into gold and ashes into currency. But, lo, it came to pass after many days ( about 19 months 3 days & 20 minutes) that the "DREAM" didn't work quite right but left him broke. He had successfully turned Gold into lead and our currency into ashes. He was now covered with slimy mud, starving, and forsaken by his boozin, crooked friends, except for these pigs. He awoke in the pig pen to find his "dream" had become a "nightmare". "CHANGE" had indeed come to him but it was not "HOPE", it was hopeless. He was painfully awakened to reality and finally "came to himself". One often "comes to himself" only after he has destroyed everything and everyone else around him and there is no one left he can go to for help. Only then, did the prodigal son finally grow up and do something right. He said to himself, "I will arise and stop this stupid nonsense of changing truth into lies, right to left, and good into evil. I am sick of this CHANGE". I want my old job back on the farm. I want a hot bath. I want Momma's clean sheets. I want some corn flakes not these ole corn husks. I want ... I want my Mommie.

Only when the prodigal finally spent himself into oblivion, with HIS FAMILY'S money, and "came to himself" in the filth with the pigs, broke, without friends and starving; only then did he turn around and go back to where he got off track. The sad thing is, he had caused his entire family great financial and mental harm which would take decades to correct, if ever. He had lost his own right to anything. He would be a poor laborer the rest of his life. These "dreamy", prodigal, Liberal Politicians have done worse than the prodigal son. They have already spent our inheritance, and put all of us and our grandchildren, for generations to come, into deep debt which we can never pay off .... not even just the interest. In these few months, the national debt has risen 600%. That doesn't count the 50 to 75 trillion promised and contracted debt obligations, federal retirement obligations, Social Security , Medicare and Medicaid obligations and other irreversible commitments which have built up and up since the Social Security program began. Whose fault it that ? Yes, Liberal, greedy for votes, prodigal politicians who quietly raised their own salaries, and created lavish insurance programs just for themselves, full retirement pay after only one term in office, and many other benefits. But, also guilty are their voters, who demanded more and more free stuff from our government and voted for whoever promised the most and cursed those who tried to balance the budget.

I'm not sure even the good guys, who get elected Nov.2, can turn the tide without getting voted out of office after one term. The remedy they devise will be so financially painful, for so many voters on the federal and public dole, they may prefer this terminal, financial cancer to the medicine. We are a bunch of spoiled brats who never considered where all this free stuff comes from or where it leads.... bankruptcy and years in a financial hole. God help us ! But He won't get us out of the pit we have dug for ourselves .... we will be buried in it decades before the debt is paid. Smile anyway. Its still good to be alive and have something this important and right to fight and work for; and God is still good. Praise Him.

Pass It On. RB