Day After Day, Year After Year, the Father Waited

He left with a fortune but returned bare and broken to his father’s waiting embrace

The road the father never stopped watching

What Made Me Think

As I was listening to Zac Poonen’s meditation on the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32), one thing caught my attention. Zac suggested that the younger son might have inherited a fortune which, in today’s terms, could have been worth millions of dollars. The reference to the father’s many hired servants (Luke 15:17) points to a man of considerable wealth, making such an inheritance quite possible. If that were so, the son probably didn’t squander it all within a few months. He might have lived away from his father for years before finally returning home.

That made me think about the father’s side of the story. What might the father have been doing during all those years while his son was away?

The Bible doesn’t tell us what the father did during those years. It simply says the son wasted his inheritance, reached the point of feeding pigs, and eventually came to his senses. But about the father’s waiting, Scripture is silent.

While He Was Still a Long Way Off

Whenever I read Luke 15:20, I pause for a moment.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” — Luke 15:20 (NIV).

I’ve often thought about those words: “while he was still a long way off.” How did the father recognise him from such a distance after so many years? Time changes people. The young man who had walked away convinced that he could make it on his own would now have looked older, weary and emaciated. Yet the father recognised him.

The Waiting Years

Perhaps the father had never stopped looking down the road his son had taken when he walked away from home. At first, it might have been just an occasional glance. Before long, it became a habit. His eyes kept returning to the road throughout the day. Every traveller in the distance stirred the same hope: “Could that be my son?” Each day ended in disappointment. Yet he kept waiting.

Days came and went. Months passed. Then years. Still, the road remained empty. Then, one day, he noticed a lone figure in the distance. Before anyone else could recognise who it was, the father knew. He had been waiting for this moment for years.

The Father’s heart

Though the son had spent years away from home, the father didn’t go searching for him. Instead, he waited, not because he loved him any less, but because some journeys end only when the wanderer chooses to return.

Whenever I read this parable, I don’t just see a son returning. I see a father who never stopped hoping his son would come home. Luke simply tells us, “his father saw him.” He had been watching that road for years. The son had wandered far from home. The father’s love never had.

This is one of the clearest pictures Jesus painted of our Heavenly Father: a Father who watched, hoped, and loved until his son came home.