In this coming Sunday’s Collect for the day, we ask God, in part, to, “Grant us so to hear [the Scriptures and to] read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.” Why would we ask God to grant us this?

If you have gone to church long enough, you will doubtless have run across ministers, myself included, who urge you to read your Bibles each day. Why would we want to take the time each day to do that?

Because in Scripture we can learn about who God is and about his nature and character. If we ever want to develop a real relationship with God or to deepen our existing relationship with him, it makes sense that we would want to know a little bit about him. After all, is that not how we start to develop friendship with others? We learn a bit about them and decide we’d like to take that relationship a bit deeper. Likewise with God.

Accordingly, I am going to start posting excerpts of Scripture from the Daily Office and then comment on what they reveal about God. Hopefully the God who emerges from Scripture is One with whom you will want to develop a deeper and life-giving relationship (if you have not done so already).

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Jesus [said to them]: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”

–Luke 15:1-2, 11-23 (NIV)

What can we learn about God’s character from this passage? First, God created us to have life and a relationship with him, one in which we acknowledge God is God and we are not. This is seen poignantly in the prodigal son’s acknowledgement that his “freedom” to pursue the lifestyle he chose is no freedom at all; rather, it is slavery and leads to destruction of the self. He finds himself feeding pigs, something that would have been highly offensive to any Jewish ears because pigs were considered to be unclean animals. The son finally “came to his senses” and desired to restore the relationship with his father that the son had foolishly chosen to break.

Second, we see a God who is quick to be merciful and who has a Father’s heart. He is not interested in punishing his profligate son. He is interested in bringing him back into the fold and puts on one heck of party to demonstrate that desire to everyone else! We see a God who wants his creatures to live, not to die.

Last, because we have a God who is quick to show mercy, we do not have to be afraid to come to him or come back to him, even if we are “living with the pigs.” Notice in the parable that there were no “I told you so’s!” There was only a Father who had compassion for his wayward son. We see this illustrated in the fact that the father ran to meet his son after the son realized what a goof he had been, something that no self-respecting father of that day would have done in that culture.

Likewise with us. When we desire to have (or restore or grow in) a relationship with God, he is eager and ready to welcome us home and to love us to his heart’s content (and ours). Is this the kind of God you would like to get to know or know better?