The Discipline of Returning

The part of the Christian life that no one talks about very much is the returning.

We speak about beginnings — the moment of conversion, the fresh start, the new season of commitment. We speak about sustained faithfulness — the long obedience, the deep roots, the woman who never wavered. What falls between these two pictures — the gap that most of us actually live in — is the practice of returning after we have wandered.

And most of us have wandered. Not dramatically. Not in a way that makes a good testimony. Just quietly, gradually, without quite noticing, until one morning we realise we have been absent from prayer for three weeks and from scripture for longer, and the distance feels large enough to be humiliating.

The parable of the prodigal son is, in one sense, entirely about returning. The son does not have a long speech prepared. He composes a few sentences in the far country and then begins the walk home. The father sees him while he is still a long way off.

The father sees him while he is still a long way off. This is the detail worth sitting with. The father has been watching the road. The welcome is not prepared after the arrival — it is ready before the son reaches the door.

The practice, then, is not to avoid the wandering — though that is good when we can manage it. The practice is to develop a shorter distance between the moment of realising we have wandered and the moment of beginning to return. To lower the threshold of return. To stop treating the distance as evidence of disqualification and start treating it as simply the space that needs to be crossed.

The road home is already known. The father is already watching.

Return is always available. That is the whole practice.