Luke 15:17-18

Certainly, God will test His people. We are all aware of that. But we can also inflict our own problems with our bad choices. This is another lesson that the parable is showing to us. Had this young man chosen not to leave home, he never would have been, as he himself said in verse 17, I perish with hunger.

The key here is the young man decided to take action rather than wallow with the swine. Repentance, we know, is more than telling our father we are sorry for actions. It is also a turning away from the wrong direction we were caught up in—or put ourselves in.

"I will arise." There is the action plan, what he told himself to do. This tells us he had reasoned out what had needed to be done to get his life back on track. He changed his direction and he went back home.

He saw it was a problem of his own making, and he stood up and went home in his humility to regain the structure and the family loyalty he had rejected.