What Do You Do When You End Up Working On The Pig Farm?

Years ago, I ran a ministry that held Bible studies in a juvenile maximum security prison. I remember being able to relate to most of the young girl’s stories and as I listened I really did think that “except for God’s grace, there go I.” At the same time, some of them where so broken, abused, and battered, that I honestly could not see how they would ever be able to overcome the life that fate had handed them. The majority of them had been in the foster care system or came from severely damaged, dysfunctional homes. Many of them did not have the fundamental life skills needed to even finish their schooling or hold down a job. They did not even know the definition of a normal life. One girl told me that she was fine and didn’t know how she ended up in this prison. The only thing that she could think of was that she “had a little problem with stabbing people.” This may at first sound funny, but imagine her life . . . stabbing others with sharp objects seemed like a “small” problem to her?

Then there were other girls, very few, that somehow got involved with the wrong people, at the wrong time and wrong place, and there they were. Some would be incarcerated for the rest of their lives, transferred to an adult prison at the end of their 18th year of existence on this earth. Many times I left that prison feeling like I had poured a glass of water into an ocean. What difference did I really make in these girl’s lives? I tried to assure the girls that God could and would redeem their lives and would use them to help others. I used to teach them the story of the prodigal son to instill hope in them.

The prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) is a familiar story to almost anyone who has read the Bible. It’s a story about the youngest son of a wealthy land owner who decides he wants all of his inheritance before the death of his father. His father gives him everything that is due him, knowing full well that this child is going in the wrong direction and that he is headed for disaster. The father never pulls back with his gifting to his son, nor does he put any restrictions on his son. As time passes, the son spends all that he has in partying and reckless living. He ends up not only working as a hired hand on a pig farm but trying to get the very food he is feeding the hogs, to feed himself. This is his lowest point. This is where he bottoms out. He knows his own father is a good man and that he treats his workers with care and respect. He decides to go home and humble himself before his father, asking only that he can be an employee.

The whole time that the son was gone, the father mourned his presence. He worried about him and most likely prayed that he would someday see him again. As a parent, I am sure I would have cried buckets over a child that was lost to me. When the son returns, the father is overwhelmed with love. He runs and greets the stinky, pig slopping, wayward son. He orders clean fresh garments and a party to celebrate the return of the one who was lost to him.

We don’t know very much about this son. His reasons for leaving a loving home seem to be that he just wanted to have fun and live life without regard for the consequences. Now that I think about it, this story is about someone who was raised in a wealthy, caring, loving family that just made poor choices based on selfishness and ignorance. This is not the case of those who never had one good thing going for them. There are those that never had a chance at a normal life. Yet, both types of individuals end up the same place. So if you were never given a chance in life or if you were given everything in life, it doesn’t make a difference when you are starving to death on a pig farm. Could have, should have, would have games just won’t fly when you are in desperate need of the basic necessities of life. Salvation and redemption work just the same for anyone willing to cry out for the help of the Father.

If you sinned knowingly or out of ignorance, the solution is the same. If you lost your way or never knew the right way to go in the first place, the answer is identical for both situations. The love of the Father and his power to forgive unconditionally, restore and revive your life is the only solution. He is more than willing to heal, redeem, buy back our future and give us new life.