In childhood we are wounded through no fault of our own. It is the inevitable result of growing up. Because of our wounds we develop a false self and fall into bondage. We become separated, estranged from our original blessing, from the image of God within us, from our true selves. As a result we feel lost, in exile, away from our true home. We are held captive by false expectations and addictions, exploited by our culture. We build our lives around accumulation, achievement and the constant need for human approval.
Our human condition needs liberation; it needs the healing and wholeness which is salvation. We need to make the journey home, to be brought back from exile. We need to discover who we are in God; to be reconnected with our original identity, our belovedness. This, in fact, is the primary purpose of religion. It is certainly what the mission of Jesus was about. Jesus sought to liberate people from their bondage to possessions, power and prestige; from seeking happiness in the wrong places. He realised that people needed to be restored to their original blessing, their true selves. He knew people needed to be helped to claim their belovedness. This is why his focus was on healing the wounds in the human heart that make us feel unworthy and inadequate. It is why he constantly invited people to an inner transformation, to a dying to the false self and a rising to the true self.
The story of humanity as a whole and of every person as an individual can be found in the story Jesus told about the Prodigal (see Luke 15:11-32). This is the story par excellence of our homecoming, of the journey our hearts need to make. It is the story of a son whose search for happiness in accumulation, achievement and the approval of others ended in dissatisfaction, disappointment and eventual destitution. It is the story of a man whose experience of falling and failing led him to realise that he was looking for happiness in the wrong places. It is the story of a son who returned home with empty hands to find his father waiting for him with open hands. It is the story of love experienced as gift, not achievement or requirements. It is the story of a father, a prodigal father, whose unconditional love healed his son’s feelings of unworthiness and shame and reconnected him with his original blessing, his belovedness. It is the universal story of what needs to happen in the life of every person if he or she is to experience healing and wholeness.