Lessons from Father and Sons

Family relationships can bring our deepest joys, and at the same time, they can be complicated. Most definitely, family relationships give us our best opportunities to turn our hearts to Jesus Christ, if we are willing to grow and change.

The family of my childhood was an idyllic one, filled with kindness, love and consistency. But family life has hard things too, and ours was no exception. One summer, my mom read an email one of her kids had written that wasn’t very flattering toward her.

I wondered how she would handle it. When I went home to visit the next summer, I found that nothing had changed. My mother had chosen to love unconditionally, forget the incident, and continue loving her children with her usual tenderness.

In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus teaches essential lessons in the context of a family. In this parable, the younger son asked for his share of the inheritance from his father. The son left home and “wasted his substance with riotous living” (Luke 15:13 KJV). When the son ran out of money and the economy went bad, he was continually hungry. As he thought about how much his father had, he determined to return home and ask for a job as a servant of his father.

Upon the wayward son’s return, his father ran to greet him, clothed him, and threw a party to welcome him home. The older brother, who had faithfully worked in the father’s business, would not come in to the party. The father went to the older son, and found that this son was angry and jealous. The father reminded his son that he already shared in everything the father had, and encouraged him to come celebrate the return of his lost brother. One lesson this parable teaches is about the nature of our Heavenly Father. Like the father in this parable, our Heavenly Father’s love is unconditional.

His willingness to freely forgive us is assured by the Atonement and Sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son. When we return to our Father in Heaven with a humble heart, seeking to change and be forgiven, He welcomes us as if with a celebration. We can count on His love. A second lesson in this parable is forgiving, even after being treated with disrespect.

This lesson is taught to us by the father. When the father saw his son had returned home, he “saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). “The fact that the father ran to his son, I believe, is significant.

The personal hurt that the son had inflicted upon his father was surely deep and profound. Likewise, the father may have been genuinely embarrassed by his son’s actions,” teaches Amy Wright in “Christ Heals That Which is Broken,” April 2022.

Wright continues, “Extending forgiveness can take tremendous courage and humility. It can also take time. It requires us to put our faith and trust in the Lord as we assume accountability for the condition of our hearts.”

Forgiveness requires us to focus on our own growing compassion and kindness, rather than on the shortcomings of the offender. “Unburdening our hearts through forgiveness isn’t always easy, but through the enabling power of Jesus Christ, it is possible,” Wright teaches.

About the father’s unconditional love for his sons, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland observes, “The father in this story [shows that] gestures of compassion toward one do not require a withdrawal or denial of love for the other. He is divinely generous to both of these sons” (“The Other Prodigal,” April 2022).

We can learn to love unconditionally, if we are willing to try. The third lesson, which many of us struggle with, regards envy. When the older brother was invited to the celebration, he “was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and entreated him” (Luke 15:28).

Holland observes, “The father, who has been suffering pain over a wayward child…now realizes his older… son is angry…that his parents are so happy to see his brother.” While the younger brother has chosen sin, foolishness, and lack of respect, Holland teaches that the older brother “lives in some confinement too. He is haunted by…jealousy. He feels taken for granted by his father and disenfranchised by his brother, when neither is the case. He has fallen victim to a fictional affront.”

Envy can happen when a happy person becomes unhappy “simply because another has had some good fortune as well,” teaches Holland. This reaction to another’s success comes from the “father of all lies.” The older brother has yet to have “the charitable breadth of vision to see that this is not a rival returning. It is his brother,” teaches Holland.

Envy believes that a gift given to another somehow diminishes our own blessings. How can we overcome envy, which is common in almost everyone? Holland suggests we can “do as these two sons did and start making our way back to the Father.”

We can “count our many blessings” and “applaud the accomplishments of others. Best of all we can serve others, the finest exercise of the heart ever prescribed.” Beth Wright loves the growing daylight and her family. She is thankful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.