Seven Days with the Prodigal Father Sample

 From Reckless Living to a Shipwrecked Life  

 His father’s fortune quickly dwindled into his own misfortune, and this adventurous young man’s misadventures brought him to complete ruin without a penny to his name. Not only did he spend all his money, but once his cash flow stopped flowing, his friends stopped coming around as well. And, to make matters even worse, a savage famine left him in a life-threatening situation! People were starving all around him, and there was nothing he could do to help them — he couldn’t even help himself. Luke 15:14-16 NIV describes the lengths he had to go to just to stay alive. “After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.” 

Verse 14 says that he was “in need.” You see, his selfish lifestyle left this young man empty and needy. Isn’t it ironic that he spent everything he had trying to satisfy his selfish cravings and urges, and instead of being satisfied, he ended up being needier than he was before? His low point came when he was forced to take a terrible job — feeding pigs and living with them in the pigpen.

It is the inevitable “high cost of low living,” and exactly where that sort of irresponsible lifestyle leads. Fun while it lasts, when the famines of life hit, you become a miserable, resentful, vengeful person who is no good to yourself or anyone else. Rather than alleviating the suffering in the world, you become part of the problem. 

So, there he was, with a heard of swine and a reprehensible attitude to keep him company as he reflected on his ill-fated journey that took him from reckless love to reckless living, to an absolutely shipwrecked life.