There’s an old story about a son who takes his inheritance early, leaves home, and spends all of it. He ends up feeding pigs, hungry enough to want what they’re eating. And one day, standing in that filth, he decides to go home.
Most people remember the part where the father sees him coming from a long way off and runs to meet him. That’s the part that gets painted and put on walls. The running father.
But notice the order. The son turned around first. He stood up, out of the mud, and started walking in the direction of home — not knowing if he’d be taken in, not having any plan beyond maybe he’ll let me work here. He had no evidence it would go well. He moved anyway.
Then the father ran.
I think this is how most things work. Not just with God, if that’s a word you use. With everything. With people, with help, with change, with whatever you want to call the larger thing that seems to be paying attention.
Something meets you. But it meets you on the road. Not in the pigpen.
That’s not a punishment and it’s not a test. It’s closer to physics. A connection needs two ends. You can be wanted, longed for, waited on — and none of it reaches you until you turn your face toward it. The turning is your half. It doesn’t have to be a big turn. It rarely is. It’s usually one small honest motion: making the call, saying the true thing out loud, opening the door you’ve been walking past.
And here’s the part worth knowing: the turn is almost always smaller than the response.
The son rehearsed a speech about being unworthy. He never got to finish it. The father was already hugging him, already calling for a robe. What came back was wildly out of proportion to the few steps he’d taken.
That’s been my experience of it too. You do the one small hard thing, and what meets you is far bigger than the thing you did. Not because you earned it. Because that’s the shape of it. The waiting is enormous. The turning is small.
One exception, and I mean it. If you’re at the bottom right now — if you can’t get up, if the weight is on your chest and moving feels impossible — this isn’t for you today. Don’t read this as one more thing you’re failing at. Some days the only honest move is staying alive until tomorrow, and that counts as the turn. If you’re in real danger, call or text 988 and stay on the line.
But if you’re not there — if you’re just stuck, comfortable enough, putting something off because life is mostly fine —
go on. Turn around.
Something has been watching that road a long time.
If something in this stayed with you, you can talk it through with Blue.
