He Began to Be in Want

The Chain

This describes the prodigal son’s actual bottom, when he had spent all, a mighty famine, in want, and no man gave unto him, the genuine, painful consequence of the pattern this parable’s earlier verses describe, riotous living, finally, actually catching up, producing this specific, described desperation.

This is worth holding as honest acknowledgment that bondage genuinely produces this kind of eventual want, not merely abstract spiritual damage, but often actual, practical, painful consequence, spent resources, damaged relationships, genuine famine in whatever specific land your own pattern has led you into.

Notice and no man gave unto him, genuine isolation accompanying this want, the community and relationships that might otherwise have provided help genuinely absent or unavailable, whether through the pattern’s own damage to those relationships or through the isolating nature of bondage itself.

Whatever want, practical or relational, your own pattern has actually produced, name it honestly today, without minimizing the real, actual cost this bondage has genuinely exacted. This honest accounting is not despair. It is, as this parable’s next verses will show, precisely what begins the actual turning this whole book is building toward.