No Blaming Others

  He was a young man from a wealthy family.  At home, he had everything he needed.  Including love from his father.  Although he lacked nothing, something within him wanted to experience the pleasures this world has to offer.  The pleasures he was thinking about were not free of cost.  Therefore, he asked his father for the share of his inheritance.  I suppose you know the story already.  It is well known.  However, I just want to focus on one main thing.  This young man went to a distant land.  Apparently, he had a "ball."  When he had a lot of money, he had a lot of friends.  Soon, he ran out of money.  Times were tough.  There were hard economic times in the land.  The young man suffered.  He had no money.  He had no job.  He had no friends.  He got a job feeding hogs.  How low can you go?  He went even lower.  He wanted to eat some of the food the hogs were eating, but he was forbidden to do so.  Pretty sad.  Yes, it is a portion of the parable of the Prodigal Son.  Here is my focus:  The parable in the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke says: "He came unto himself."  Very important.  What does it mean?  It means he humbled himself.  It means there was no room, reason, or justification to blame anyone else.  He came unto himself!  This means he didn't blame his friends,  government, society, the economy, his family, teachers, neighbors, the "system,"  tough breaks, God or anyone else.  He came unto HIMSELF.  The buck stopped there.  Forget about blame.  To me, this is the most important part of this story.  Before he decided  where to go, he had to have asked himself: "Where do I go from here?"  He then answered his own question: "I will arise and go to my father."  It worked out for him.  It worked out for him because........"He came unto himself."  No blaming others, man.  No blaming others.