A few years ago I was helping some relatives move. My dad has often said that people need to move every so often just so they have to go through the house and get rid of some of the stuff they don’t use anymore. This move was no exception. Once most of the things had made their way into the house it was easier to see what they didn’t want to take in. As we were talking in the garage they asked if I had any use for any of it. I declined most of them, but there was one thing that caught my attention. It was a toy golf set. A few coloured balls, two plastic putters, and nine plastic rings with flags for holes.

Now I may be in my thirties, but this toy really excited me. The reason I was so pumped is it was identical to a toy I remember playing with at my great grandma’s house. I had so many memories of playing with that golf set. Now my kids could have a set just like it and make similar happy memories. When I got it home and showed it to the kids I think I was even more excited than they were. We opened the box and set up a little course in the house. Even the texture and colour of the little golf balls made me happy. It was just the way I remembered it.

Not too long after that inaugural game of golf, my kids brought me a broken plastic putter. In their excitement, they had been playing with it a little too rough and it had snapped right in the middle of the shaft. They were sad to have broken a toy. I was upset and disappointed because to me this was more than just another fun toy. We had a conversation about being gentle with toys and being careful so we didn’t break things. Then I put the broken club away in the office with the hopes of one day trying to fix it.

That was a couple of years ago. They have played with the set on and off over those years but only had the one putter to use. This past weekend my boys came to me and asked if I would get the golf set down for them. As I was pulling down the box for them I thought of the broken putter and since I had some time, I decided to see if I could put it back together. I went into my wife’s craft room and found a wooden piece of dowling to put in the center of the broken shaft to hold the two pieces together and reinforce it. I sanded the wood down to the right size and shape to fit. Then I wrapped the shaft in a special tape that is filled with a resin that would harden up like plastic to patch the break and fuse the two pieces back together again. When it was all done I had a putter. It wasn’t pretty, but it was just as good as the remaining putter, and maybe even stronger.

When my boys came upstairs and saw the other putter put back together again their eyes lit up and they excitedly asked, “can we play with it?”. I said yes and they ran off to play some golf with two clubs instead of one. I went back to whatever it was that I was doing. About a half hour later I was sitting at the kitchen table with my wife. My youngest son came slowly up the stairs, walked through the kitchen and handed the putter to my wife in two broken pieces. It was the one I had just fixed! Right there just above the reinforced area, it was cracked in two again. After two years I had finally fixed the putter and they had broken it less than an hour.

I was upset. All that work was for nothing. I wanted to launch into a lecture about being more careful, and not using everything as a sword. But I could feel in that moment that it was not going to be a Christlike conversation. So instead I took the putter, I let out a sigh and a grumble and I put the putter down on the table and went back to whatever I was doing while my wife talked to our son about what had happened. When he realized that the new putter could not be easily fixed he ran to his room crying.

I am sure that some of those tears were because his toy was broken. I am sure some tears fell because he felt sorrow because he was the one who had broken it. But I am ashamed to say that I am also sure some of those tears were because of how his imperfect father had reacted to a heartbroken little boy who was only looking for help and forgiveness.

I wish I could say that was my worst offense as a father. But it isn’t. It probably isn’t even close. It’s just the most recent. I have been thinking a lot about fathers lately. One parable, in particular, has been on my mind a lot. The parable of the prodigal son.

I recently listened to a book by David Butler titled, Almighty: How the Most Powerful Being in the Universe is Also Your Heavenly Father. One chapter in that book has changed the way that I look at this parable.

The first thing I learned was the meaning of the word prodigal. I had always thought that prodigal meant wayward or rebellious but it actually means, “spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant; having or giving something on a lavish scale”. So the “prodigal son” was being prodigal while he “wasted his substance with riotous living”. Just like many kids recently were with their Halloween candy. Extremely prodigal.

The second thing I learned is that Jesus didn’t name most his parables. I’m not sure why I never thought of this before, but Jesus never says, “let me tell you the parable of the prodigal son”. He just goes into the story. The names of the parables were thought up by people to describe what his stories were about. Those names are useful to help tell other people what parable we are talking about, but they might also influence how we think about the parable. We are used to the title of a book telling us what the story is about, what to focus on or what to look out for. In the parable of the prodigal son, it has typically made me think about the wayward son and his return home. But there is one character in the story I have never given enough attention to. The father.

In the parable, the son decides that he would like his inheritance now. That’s basically the equivalent of telling your dad that you wish he was dead so you could have his stuff. But even though his father was still using and enjoying the fruits of a lifetime worth of labors he divides it up and gives his son his portion. The son promptly packs up his things and leaves for a far country where he “wasted his substance with riotous living”.

So now he is out of money and living in a country that is now in the middle of a famine. He ends up finding work feeding pigs. His life is at such a low point that he sits there looking at the husks the pigs are eating, and he is jealous of them. I’m not sure if you have ever been around pigs but they will eat almost anything. I am pretty sure if you accidentally dropped a boot in with their food they would eat it without question. They are like the garburators of the farm. This food was not an appetizing site. And here sat this son was wishing he could eat as well as the pigs who were eating scraps and unwanted husks.

This was it for the son. The moment when he finally realized what a terrible mess he had made of his life. I picture him sitting and thinking about home and the home-cooked meals, the comfortable beds, and the love of wonderful parents that he took for granted. It would probably bring tears to his eyes because he can’t picture any possible way to get that back. Then he remembers the family servants. They were well fed. They had a place to sleep. Maybe, just maybe, if he begged and pleaded he could be a servant to the family he had wronged.

I can only imagine what that walk home would have been like. I remember having to face my father after having made my own mistakes around the house and the farm. It was never a pleasant experience. And I never did anything on the scale of what this son had done. While he was walking, just trying to put one foot in front of the other, the father spots him “while he was yet a great way off” and has compassion on him. He runs to him, wraps him in a huge embrace, falls on his neck and kisses him.

I am sure that the son never expected this. But once it happened, I can’t imagine he wanted it to end. When it did, he mustered up the courage to say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son”. The best the son is hoping for at this point is to be allowed to be a servant. But the father won’t have any of it. Can you imagine the look on the son’s face when the father’s response is to call his servants and tell them to go and get his very best robe and bring it for his son? Then he asks for a ring to be put on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And that isn’t all. Then he calls for his prized fatted calf. The one he is no doubt saving for the most special of occasions and has it killed to throw a party in honor of his sons return.

Most of the time when I read this parable I have been focused on me, the prodigal son, and my repentance process. What I missed for all these years was how much I could learn about my Heavenly Father. The one who allowed His son to make his own choice to go off and waste His substance in riotous living. The father who was watching for His son so intently that He saw him while he was “yet a great way off” and dropped everything to go running to him. The father who would not allow a son to work or buy his way back into the family. He immediately put the best robe on him, a ring to show his favored status, and new shoes on his feet.

In his book, David Butler suggests that maybe we should call this parable the Prodigal Father. Giving out His love freely and recklessly, even extravagantly. Offering forgiveness on a lavish scale. In fact, it is such a reckless act that it is hard for me to comprehend. My son came back to me having broken a plastic putter from the 1980’s and I hid my face from him. I wouldn’t even talk to him because I was so upset that he broke it. I can’t even imagine how I would react if he had wasted his portion of everything my wife and I have. But that is exactly what the Father does. Then when the son returns, before he can even open his mouth, his Father wraps him in a loving embrace. The son humbly asks to be a servant, and instead, he is dressed in the finest clothes the Father has. And the Father’s most prized calf dies to celebrate bringing the son back into the family.

Jeffrey R. Holland said, “It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change” and mean it”. Doesn’t that sound like the prodigal son? Doesn’t it sound like the experience of Alma the younger, and the sons of Mosiah who were described as “the vilest of sinners”? He continues, “Do not misunderstand. Repentance is not easy or painless or convenient. It can be a bitter cup from hell. But only Satan would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgment of sin is more distasteful than permanent residence in it.”.  Satan would try to tell you that spending a life in that pigsty is a better alternative to the relatively short walk home.

Do you realize how powerful that is? Think of the last time you felt the spirit. That can’t happen without it having a perfecting and cleansing effect on you. Nephi said, “then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost”. It is the Spirit’s influence in our life that allows us to be cleansed from sin. So that time in Sunday school that you felt the spirit, yup you were being cleansed from sin. You had started the walk home by wanting to change. Now it may take more than an instant to cleanse some sins but it is just that easy to begin. The harder part is to answer the question posed by King Benjamin, “can ye feel so now?”. Is your repentance still valid, or have you turned back to the pigsty? Making repentance permanent is a process. It will take time and effort but it gets easier every day we work at it. Even when we continue to make mistakes, every time we turn back home we grow in confidence that He is still there watching for us.

What a putz of a father I can be. I sat there at the kitchen table feeling bitter over a broken piece of plastic. It reminds me of another parable where a gracious king forgives the debt of a man who owes him 10,000 talents. That is a HUGE debt. George Buttrick has written that “the total annual taxes of Judea, Idumea, Samaria, Galilee, and Perea amounted to only eight hundred talents”. And yet this man was offered, not an extension, not a payment plan, but forgiveness of the debt! Then he goes out and finds a man who owes him “an hundred pence” which is around $68 and has him cast into prison because he can’t pay. That is basically what I did to my son over a plastic putter.

So now I try to remember what it is like to be a repentant child. And how good it feels to be forgiven. Nobody here on earth is perfect. So chances are I am still going to have my spazzy moments over little things. But hopefully, they are farther apart, and maybe a little less spazzy. The really wonderful thing is, the closer I come to my Heavenly Father, the more like him I become. I have a lot to learn as a father, and as a person, but the best teacher I have is my perfect Father in Heaven. My prodigal Father.