STOP RUNNING,

START RETURNING

A Reflection, Rise, and Return of the Young

Based on Luke 15: The Parable of the Prodigal Son

By Andrew Owino

Scripture Anchor

"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

, Luke 15:20

A Word Before We Begin

This is not a comfortable book. It was not written to be comfortable. It was written because there is a generation quietly collapsing , not in loud rebellion alone, but in confusion, numbness, hidden sin, and the slow destruction of purpose.

Three teenagers stand before us as we open these pages. Three real portraits of what youth can look like in our generation.

Letisha is fifteen years old. Her eyes, once bright with the promise of childhood, are now clouded by a drinking problem so severe she cannot cope with school or peers. Her parents , exhausted and overworked , discover, in traumatic succession, that Letisha had been experimenting with bhang and cocaine. Then comes the final blow: she has already undergone an illegal and dangerous abortion, and she is relying on her equally troubled friends for whatever scraps of support they can offer a girl already sinking.

Arnie is fourteen. He has become a vicious juvenile delinquent , plunged into a dark abyss from which he does not appear to want to return. He has stolen a television from his own home. He has struck his mother and left her face bloodied. He smashed a streetlight in his neighbourhood, dragging the metal scrap to sell it. When a neighbour witnessed the act, Arnie brandished a machete and fled. He had already squandered his school fees in the company of a gang that was leading him nowhere good.

And then there is Katie. Twelve years old. She noticed that her town had no playground. She did not complain about it to her parents or post about it online. She assembled a team of other young people, brainstormed funding ideas, developed an innovative plan involving candy and sandwich sales, and eventually presented the vision to the county governor, who funded it. Today, that playground is a vibrant reality , a place where people picnic and forge lasting friendships. Katie says: "You won't get anywhere if you don't try. Teenagers can also contribute to the upgrading of their world. They just need good advice, good support, and opportunities for learning."

Teenagers like Letisha and Arnie are the ones we hear about most. They fill our news headlines, our prayer meetings, and our worried WhatsApp group chats. But there are many noble teenagers like Katie who contribute positively to the community and competently make the transition to adulthood. For most young people, teenage-hood is not primarily a time of rebellion or crisis. It is a time of evaluation, decision-making, commitment, and carving out a place in the world.

The problem is not primarily with teenagers themselves. The problem is with the needs that go unmet. To reach their full potential, young people need a range of legitimate opportunities and long-term support from adults who deeply care about them. As teenagers try one face after another, seeking to find a face of their own, their generation becomes the fragile cable by which the best and the worst of the parents’ generation is transmitted to the next. In the end, there are only two lasting legacies parents can leave the young: one is roots, and the other is wings.

This book is about both. It is an exposition of Luke 15 , the parable of the prodigal son , woven through the nine domains of what I call the RETURNING life. It speaks to the young who are running. It speaks to the parents who are watching at the gate. It speaks to the church that has sometimes been the elder brother at the door rather than the Father running down the road. And it speaks to every person who has, at some point, been in the far country and has needed to hear that the road home is not closed.

The nine letters of the word RETURNING name nine pressure points in the life of the young: Restlessness, Esteem, Temptation, Uncertainty, Relationships, Noise, Isolation, Numbness, and Grief. Through each, Jesus walks with us in the parable, showing us what each form of lostness looks like, and what genuine return costs and produces.

From a Seventh-day Adventist standpoint, we hold that the Scriptures are our anchor, that the Sabbath is our weekly sign of identity and belonging in God, that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that the great controversy between Christ and Satan is fought , in large part , on the terrain of youth. Ellen G. White wrote: "The youth are Satan’s special prey." This book is a pastoral response to that war.

PART ONE

The Running Life

What it means to be young , and what it costs to waste it

A Generation That Is Quietly Collapsing

There is a generation that is not loudly lost, but quietly collapsing. Not in rebellion alone, but in confusion, numbness, and slow destruction. They have phones in their hands and emptiness in their chests. They are connected to the entire world and disconnected from everything that matters. They are fast. Nothing slows them down. A six-year-old can ask ChatGPT whether the sermon being preached is really spiritual. And they are running , not always away from something, but often toward nothing in particular, simply because stillness feels unbearable.

A sinful state is not merely a bad life. It is a wasted life , a squandered mind, squandered years, squandered destiny. And more than that, it is a state of perpetual motion away from the only Father who can make any of it make sense.

Someone said that youth is a wonderful time , and it is a pity that it is wasted on the young. But that is not God’s design. Youth is not a time for wasting. It is a time for sowing, for accumulating knowledge, growing, learning and developing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually , in preparation for life. King Nebuchadnezzar, when he asked Ashpenaz to bring him young noble men from Israel (Daniel 1:3), gave us a definition of youth that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with attitude. Youth is not a number. Youth is a function of the mind , not fearing the future, daring and adaptable to change, yet never stuck in past success or past failure. A young person learns quickly and grows quickly. To be young is to be creative, courageous, and hopeful.

But the king also said he wanted young men without physical defects (Daniel 1:4). Youth is a time of preservation. What the king meant was not a blemish of birth, but a blemish of accumulation , disability acquired through bad choices, bad attitudes, and idleness. And today, most young people have accumulated disabilities they did not begin with:

There is a language disability , an inability to speak or write or to express oneself with clarity and confidence. There is a social disability , the inability to say no, to keep healthy company, to maintain relational boundaries. There is an economic disability , the inability to make, manage, and multiply money. There is a psychological disability , the double-mindedness and guilt of cheap, idle, and negative thinking. The World Health Organization has declared that depression is the number one cause of illness and disability among adolescents worldwide. And a great portion of that disability of the mind is formed by thoughtless hours spent before negative media and screens whose side effects science is only beginning to fully measure.

The Screen Problem: Kenya’s Invisible Epidemic

Before we speak of the parable, we must speak of the world in which this generation is being formed. It is a world of screens. And it is a world that is consuming them.

According to the Digital 2024 Report, Kenyans spent an average of 3 hours and 43 minutes on social media every single day , making Kenya the highest social media-consuming nation on earth. Not second. Not third. First. Among young people aged 18 to 29, this figure climbs even higher, with many spending three to four hours online daily and checking their phones an average of 58 times a day. A more recent 2026 report places Kenya’s average even higher, at 4 hours and 13 minutes per day on social media alone , not counting all other screen use.

Let that sink in. The nation producing your children, your students, your church members , is the most socially-media-consumed nation on earth. And these hours are not being spent in neutral ways. Research confirms the damage:

•       Excessive screen time weakens learning, language, and communication skills.

•       It decreases academic achievement across the board.

•       It decimates creativity, problem-solving, and imagination.

•       It fosters a mind of quick, superficial solutions rather than deep thinking.

•       It is directly linked to obesity, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and depression.

•       Globally, approximately 47% of teenagers report feeling addicted to social media.

•       Teenagers worldwide now spend an average of 4.8 hours per day on social media alone , excluding other screen activities.

One young Kenyan woman named Wairimu described how her social media use began as casual entertainment and gradually filled every quiet moment , commutes, lunch breaks, evenings that once held other plans. She did not realise she was addicted until it cost her a work opportunity. "I actually missed my first real job interview because of TikTok," she said. "I set an alarm like a responsible adult" , and then the feed consumed her.

Anna Lembke, Director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University, has said it plainly: "Just as the hypodermic needle is the delivery mechanism for drugs like heroin, the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine for a wired generation." The platforms are not accidents. They are designed to be addictive. The infinite scroll, the autoplay, the notification , each is an engineered trigger for compulsive return. Our young people are not weak. They are targeted.

This is the famine before the pigsty. Before the visible collapse, there is the invisible one , the slow erosion of the mind, the fragmentation of attention, the steady displacement of the interior life by the screen’s insatiable appetite for their presence.

And yet , there is a Good Shepherd. He is not rattled by the far country’s entertainments. He comes into the wilderness and arrives before the hyenas do. He will not stop searching until He finds the one who is lost. This is the God of Luke 15.

The Statistics of a Generation in Crisis

The numbers are not abstract. They have names. They have families. They have Sabbath school teachers who remember when they were children.

A 2024 study published in BJPsych Open , based on 2,652 Kenyan high school students , found that the prevalence rates of suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts were 26.8%, 14.9%, and 15.7% respectively. These rates are higher than those reported for Western countries. A companion study across 9,742 Kenyan high school, college, and university students found that the overall prevalence of suicidal ideation was 22.6%, with major depression found in 20%.

Read those numbers again. In a room of ten Kenyan secondary school students, more than two of them are likely carrying thoughts of ending their lives. One in five may be clinically depressed.

Research on adolescents transitioning to secondary school in Nairobi County found that 20% of adolescents reported risk of suicide, and 36.4% had depressive symptoms. Depression and alcohol use were the strongest predictors of suicidal behaviour. And suicide is not theoretical for Kenyan youth. In October 2023 alone, multiple cases of suicide were reported across the country , in Nairobi estates, informal settlements, and middle-class neighbourhoods. In the coastal county of Kilifi, 10 people died by suicide in the space of just two months.

Among Kenyan university students, the pattern is even more stark. A KU fifth-year medical student, Stella Karanja, walked to the servants’ quarters of her accommodation, wrote a note, and hanged herself. In January 2015, two JKUAT students hanged themselves within days of each other. In July 2016, a Kenyatta University student hanged himself after losing his school fees , eighty thousand shillings , in a betting app, after placing on the UEFA Euro match between Germany and Italy that ended in a draw. He had gambled everything on a result that did not come, and found no way to face what followed. In December the same year, another fourth-year student hanged himself in his house. These are not ancient histories. These are our young people. They are leaving us one by one, and we must understand why.

A student counsellor at JKUAT noted that suicide among campus students is mostly the result of failed relationships, financial instability, and exposure to disease. A psychologist observing the trend pointed out that the average Kenyan male student is especially endangered , because of the desire to fit in, because of the pressure to perform, and because boys are taught that silence is strength, until the silence becomes too heavy to carry.

More than fifteen cases of student deaths at Kenyan universities were reported in the press in a single year , from murder to suicide to alcohol-related incidents in off-campus hostels that have become the new far country for this generation. With only 25% of university students accommodated on campus, the remaining 75% live outside the protection and community of the institution, in neighbourhoods where every weekend becomes a test of character that many are not equipped to pass.

These are the faces of the prodigal son in 2024 Kenya. They are not in a foreign land. They are in Gachororo. In Kahawa Wendani. In Kiwanja. In Githurai. In every town where young people have gone out full and returned empty , or have not returned at all.

The Parable Begins: Give Me

Jesus told the parable of Luke 15 in response to the Pharisees who were murmuring that He received sinners and ate with them. Luke 15:1-2 tells us: "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.’"

Many came to Jesus with different names and needs. Some were called Pharisees, teachers, tax collectors, thieves, adulterers, and sinners. Some came to complain. Some came to listen. Some came to question, in doubt and perplexity. Some were struggling with the guilt and weight of sin. Some were simply tired , tired from the week’s heaviness, troubled with family issues, dwindling grades, fading hope.

The young also come to Jesus with questions. They want to know the right way. They have been disappointed and they want encouragement. The devil has mixed truth and error, and they want to hear what Jesus actually has to say on the subject of sex, drugs, career, identity, Sabbath, worship, and entertainment. They have been confused in matters of identity by peer pressure and they want a genuine answer. They have pressing questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? A correct and timely answer to these four questions is the key to a life of success and significance , a life of peace and abundance.

In response to the crowd , the sinners, the seekers, the complainers, and the lost , Jesus told three parables. A lost sheep. A lost coin. And a lost son. Together, they map the terrain of lostness and the architecture of the Father’s response.

And the parable of the lost son begins with three words: "Give me."

We live in what I call a “you owe me” culture , entitled, driven by hedonic adaptation, convinced that comfort is a right and sacrifice is for someone else. It is bad, and the beginning of worse, when men look upon God’s gifts as debts due to them. “Give me”: claim without gratitude. The giver is rejected, but his gifts are desired. The offering is accepted while the offerer is turned away.

The younger son desired the portion and not the source. He wanted the wealth without the relationship. “I want your wealth, but I don’t want you.” This is the selfishness of “mine” , what belongs to me, what I am owed, what I can claim and control. And poverty begins precisely there: in the man who collects only what is “mine.” If that is all he has, then he is already poor. His personality is impoverished. His worldview is narrow. He does not seek to grow , he only seeks to consume.

This is the foolish ambition of independence that ruined Adam and Eve in the Garden. They were given everything. They had a home, a Father, a purpose, and abundance. What they reached for was the one thing they had not been given , the portion they were not yet ready to steward. And in reaching for it, they lost everything they already had.

The Far Country: What the Pigsty Looks Like Today

Without governance, there is no control. Without relational borders, there is no safety. The world we have built for our young people is a world without walls, and we have called this freedom. We have given them access to everything and formation in nothing. We live in a culture of boundlessness. No relational borders. Drugs without location , available at any corner, any hour. Digital excitement without wisdom. Pleasure without consequence, at least for a season.

The young man in the parable gathered all he had , the great folly of sinners is being content in their lifetime to receive their good things , and journeyed to a far country. And there he wasted his substance with riotous living. Not slowly. Not cautiously. He wasted it.

Let the high school student understand: school may be all the substance you have right now. The years here, the formation here, the friendships here, the disciplines being formed here , this is your portion. And it is possible to waste it. High school is your wealth, and you are wasting it when your precious time and opportunity is squandered in riotous living , the riotous living of screens and bad company and the expenditure of the mind on things that cannot give a return.

A mighty famine arose. A sinful state is a wanting state. Sinners want necessities for their souls. They have neither food nor raiment for them, nor any provision for hereafter. The path of the transgressor is a hard one. A child who was a son, with a brother and a citizen’s standing , now has no father, no citizenship, nothing to do but feed pigs. He is degraded below the level of swine , for at least the swine have a careful owner who provides their husks.

He was worried about what he would eat that day. His plan had failed, and so he must now live under someone else’s plan. Some plans take our children and hire them out as swine slaves. Courses and educational systems that do not prepare them for present or future realities , training the youth for a world that has already passed into history. When they graduate, they are lost in trade and relevance. They can only feed pigs. And so today, many of them are photographers and content creators , not because these are wrong callings, but because no one put a ring on their finger and told them who they were and equipped them for life.

But the pig farm has modern addresses. The pigsty today has a Wi-Fi password. It has a betting app. It has a dark corridor in an off-campus hostel. It has the silence of a Nairobi youth staring at a ceiling at three in the morning, checking their phone for the forty-eighth time, unable to say why they feel so alone in a city of six million people.

PART TWO

REFLECT

Internal Collapse , The Three Inner Domains

Before a man can return, he must first stop. And before he can stop, he must first see. The moment of seeing , what Jesus calls “coming to himself” , is the hinge of the entire story. Without it, there is no return. Without it, there is only deeper famine, deeper shame, and a longer road in the wrong direction.

The first three letters of RETURNING describe the internal terrain of a soul that has been running , the things collapsing inside before the visible collapse appears on the outside.

R

RESTLESSNESS

The Famine Before the Pigsty

Anxiety. Burnout. Overthinking. Sleep deprivation. Exhausted spirituality. The fear of mental collapse. A slow, creeping numbness. Self-harm ideation hidden behind cheerful social media posts. These are not random ailments. They are the symptoms of a soul that has been running too long on empty.

This is the famine before the pigsty , the spiritual depletion that precedes the visible collapse. The prodigal son was restless long before he made the request. The “Give me” was the expression of an internal restlessness that had been building. He could not be still in his father’s house. He needed to go. He needed to move. He needed to find something , he did not know what , somewhere else. This is the anatomy of restlessness: a soul that is dissatisfied, driven, and looking in all the wrong directions for peace.

Today, that restlessness is amplified by a digital world that never sleeps, never quiets, and never stops demanding attention. The doomscroll is the modern pigsty of the mind. It is not rest. It is the illusion of engagement while the soul starves. In Kenya, where the average person spends nearly four hours per day on social media, this is not a marginal problem. It is a national emergency dressed as entertainment.

The anxiety that follows is real. A 2025 study tracking adolescents found that nearly one-third showed increasing addictive screen use patterns over several years. About 32% of teenagers report feeling anxious if they cannot access social media. For some, the phone has become what alcohol is to the alcoholic , the thing that takes the edge off a pain that has never been named or addressed.

We see one young man after another taken into drugs, addiction , if not into darker territories, then ending in suicide. The anxiety of failing publicly, of not having a plan, of being alone, of hidden sin exposed, of disappointing parents, of financial entrapment and irrelevance , all of these melt down into depression and mental collapse. The World Health Organization has confirmed that depression is the number one cause of illness and disability among adolescents worldwide. The data from Kenya confirms it painfully: in a study of 9,742 Kenyan students, 20% were found to have major depression.

The Sabbath is God’s answer to restlessness. Every seventh day, He commands His people to stop , to cease from striving, from the noise, from the performance. The Sabbath is not just a commandment; it is a weekly therapy session with the Creator. It is the Father saying to the restless young soul: you do not have to earn your worth today. You do not have to produce. You do not have to perform. Come home. Rest. I am enough.

From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, God provides what no screen can: a structured silence, a communal rest, an identity not earned by achievement but given by grace. For a generation that does not know how to stop, the Sabbath is a prophylactic against the very restlessness that drives them to the far country.

E

ESTEEM

Identity Formed from the Outside

We have raised a generation whose sense of self is formed entirely from the outside. From followers. From grades. From aesthetics. From gym results. From the approval of strangers on platforms built to addict them. Young people are searching for their identities , and they are searching in the wrong places.

Identity is found through four channels. The first is family , individuality formed in reaction to the identities of parents, siblings, and relatives. Some choose to follow the good parent or sibling; others, the rebellious one. If there is too much pressure to become like a good sibling, a young person may rebel , not because rebellion is their nature, but because it is the only path to a self that feels like their own.

The second is rebellion. Do not see rebellion and ignore it. The deeper need behind a girl’s rebellion is not defiance , it is identity. She is seeking a face of her own. Correct her, yes. But reinforce her identity more forcefully than you correct her behaviour. What she needs is not a lecture. What she needs is a mirror that shows her who she truly is.

The third channel is celebrities. Others seek identity through people who are considered popular, powerful, and admired , sports stars, designers, models, social media influencers. It is a great help when successful people who love Jesus are visible to the young, because they will imitate quickly what they admire. The biggest curse a school can have is a smoking, alcoholic teacher. The biggest curse a child can have is a reckless, addicted parent who only criticises and never offers a good example or good advice.

The fourth channel is the opinions of others. This is the most dangerous of all for a digital generation, because the crowd is now global, always online, and often cruel. The body-image pressure on young Kenyans is merciless. The gym-image culture, the filtered photograph, the curated Instagram life , these create a standard of physical and social perfection that most human beings cannot and were never meant to meet.

The prodigal son had an esteem problem long before he entered the far country. He could not see his own dignity as a son in his father’s house. He needed to prove something , to acquire something , to be something on his own terms. His departure was partly an identity project. And the far country was brutal in what it wrote.

The Father’s answer to esteem is not applause. It is the robe , thrown immediately over the rags of the returning son, before he had said or done anything to earn it. The robe says: your identity is not your history. Your worth is not your performance. You are a son before you are anything else.

In the Sabbath school and in the home, we must become communities that form identity from the inside. That name the image of God in every young person we encounter. That speak the language of belonging before they ask for their portion and run.

T

TEMPTATION

The Secret Life

There is a domain we must speak about with clarity and dignity , without flinching and without shaming. It is the domain of temptation: the hidden life, the secret struggle, the private war.

The prodigal son wasted his substance with riotous living. The elder brother later names it: “He devoured your living with harlots.” This points to the pattern , compulsive, unbounded behaviour that crosses every line and produces compounding shame.

In our generation, this domain includes pornography, masturbation, compulsive sexual behaviour, sexting, hookup culture, and the double lives that these create. It includes betting , like the Kenyatta University student who lost his eighty thousand shillings on a football match and hanged himself when the draw came in. It includes gaming addiction, the dopamine-driven habits that hijack the brain’s reward system and produce a compulsive cycle that feels impossible to break. It includes every form of pleasure-seeking that promises relief and delivers only deeper bondage.

A sinful man hides. He hides in pornography, in betting, in private struggles that no one sees. The hiddenness is itself part of the trap. Because what is hidden cannot be healed. What is unnamed cannot be addressed. What is kept in the dark does not shrink , it grows.

The business of the enemy’s servants is to make provision for the flesh , to fulfil its lusts. And that is no better than feeding with the swine. The pleasures of this life will always fall short of satisfying the soul. However low we get, swine food , wine and drugs and digital stimulation and sexual excitement , will always prove to leave a thirst that none of these excitements can fill. The pleasure diminishes. The appetite grows. The shame deepens. The cycle accelerates. This is not freedom. This is a pigsty with better lighting.

The Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) gives us a framework for speaking about this domain with pastoral clarity. Our bodies are not our own to do with as we please. They are the dwelling place of God’s Spirit. Anything that defiles, addicts, or degrades the body is not a neutral lifestyle choice , it is an act against the temple of the Most High. And the Spirit who dwells within is willing, more than willing, to help the young person who cries out from the pigsty of compulsive behaviour.

Speak about these things in the Sabbath school. Speak about them from the pulpit. Speak about them with dignity and with love. The silence of the church on these topics has not protected the young , it has simply left them to fight alone.

PART THREE

RISE

External Pressures and Formation Failures

The next three domains of the RETURNING journey describe not merely what happens inside a soul, but what forms around it. These are the external pressures and formation failures that make the running seem rational , and that make the returning seem impossible even after the soul has decided to come home.

U

UNCERTAINTY

Fear of a Future That Has No Shape

There is a generation that does not know what to do with its life , not because it is lazy, but because it is genuinely afraid. The fear of career failure. Financial insecurity. The anxiety that artificial intelligence will make their skills irrelevant before they have had time to develop them. The paralysis of too many options and too little formation.

The younger son had a particular kind of certainty , the certainty of self-will. He knew exactly what he wanted: his portion, now. But that kind of certainty, rooted in arrogance rather than wisdom, is the most dangerous form. It produces movement without direction. Speed without destination. The confidence of departure without the preparation for arrival. The Bible says that not many days after he gathered all together and journeyed. There is a lack of experience in youthfulness which is a great source of folly , arrogance, pride, self-sufficiency, impatience with governance and rules.

His plan failed. And when it failed, he had no alternative. He must live in someone else’s plan. This is the fate of the young person who has not been properly formed: they graduate into a world that has passed them by. They cannot get a job because what they were trained for is no longer needed. They cannot build a business because they were never taught what money is or how it works. And the courses and educational systems that were supposed to equip them have, in many cases, trained them for obsolete skills that soon drown under economic waters , pushing down the throats of young learners empty pods and husks, leaving them only for unsatisfying employment in someone else’s pig farm.

The AI anxiety is real and not irrational. The world of work is changing faster than any previous generation has faced. But there is a deeper certainty available to the young , one that no algorithm can displace. It is the certainty of divine calling. It is the knowledge that the God who made you has a purpose for you that is not dependent on the job market. The son had to arise before he had a guarantee of reception. He had to take the first step while the outcome was still uncertain. This is the posture that uncertainty demands: not the elimination of risk, but the courage to move anyway , toward the one Father whose house is always sufficient.

R

RELATIONSHIPS

Where Identity Distortion Becomes Structural

No domain of collapse in the life of the young is more foundational , or more consistently overlooked , than relationships. Specifically, the relationships that were supposed to form them and did not.

The father in this parable is a model. He loves without imprisoning. The son is free to make his choices. The father is wounded, publicly ashamed, and dishonoured by his son’s departure , and yet he does not harden. There are fathers in our midst who seem as though they were baptised in lemon water and soaked in hot ginger , so hardened that when they enter a room, all the children become rigid with tension. Some mistake this for holiness. It is not holiness. It is wickedness masquerading as patriarchal authority.

The father-wound is real. Many young people cannot remain in the father’s house because they have never experienced it as a safe place. Something in the household , whether in their perception or in reality , made departure seem preferable to presence. The emotionally absent father. The mother-son enmeshment that produces boys who cannot grow into men. The delayed adulthood , young men staying into their forties, still being called “boy,” still being nursed rather than commissioned. They must be nursed into adulthood because no one gave them the ring of responsibility.

Research on suicidal behaviour among Kenyan adolescents transitioning to secondary school found that those living without both parents had significantly elevated risks. Among the adolescents studied, 21.2% were living with only their mother. The absence of the father is not merely emotional , it is statistical. It shows up in the data of every crisis we study.

The distrust of authority because of hypocrisy is rational, not merely rebellious. When leaders who were supposed to model integrity have been exposed as frauds, when marriages that were supposed to model covenant have collapsed in bitterness, when fathers who were supposed to model strength have been absent or abusive , the young person who distrusts authority has been given reason to do so. The church must acknowledge this honestly.

But note: the father in the parable also did not send supplies to his son in the far country. He did not sustain the rebellion with provisions. He did not fatten the prodigal in his madness, as many parents do today , handing out allowances that fund the far country, making provision for rebellion. He waited. He maintained the home as a place worth returning to. He watched the gate. And when the son turned, he ran.

Go to this father and learn from him. He was not indifferent. He was waiting. As soon as the son returned home, there was an opportunity to serve. The father was looking forward to his coming back. Let our homes and our churches model this: elders and parents who are genuinely happy when the young return , who make us love the place, so that even when we run, the memory of it draws us back.

N

NOISE

The Inability to Think Deeply

The sixth domain is noise , the overwhelming, relentless, digital overload that has fragmented the attention of an entire generation and made deep thinking almost impossible.

There is a principle here: when an engine warning light comes on in a car, the honest response is to stop and investigate. But many drivers, pressed for time and afraid of what they might find, cover the warning light with tape. The light no longer bothers them. The engine is still deteriorating. They have not solved the problem. They have simply blocked the signal.

This is what the noise of our digital age is doing to a generation. The doomscroll is not information-gathering. It is distraction maintenance. It is the compulsive covering of the warning light of the soul , the restlessness, the grief, the uncertainty , with an endless feed of content that never nourishes and never allows the silence long enough for the soul to speak.

Consider what is happening in Kenya right now. Sixty percent of Kenyans actively use social media. Young people aged 18 to 29 check their phones an average of 58 times a day. The most visited sites are Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube , all platforms designed with the specific goal of maximising the time spent on them by maximising emotional engagement. Not informational engagement. Emotional. Outrage, desire, comparison, longing, envy , these are the currencies of the attention economy, and they are being mined from the minds of our young people around the clock.

Doom scrolling has been revealed as addiction , an undermining of the brain, a waste of time, and a supplier of the anxiety it pretends to relieve. His madness left him only when he came to himself , in silence, in a pigsty, far from the entertainments of the far country. The coming-to-himself happened precisely because the noise stopped.

Decision paralysis is the fruit of noise. A generation that consumes more information than any generation in history is less capable of making clear, committed decisions than perhaps any before it. The volume of options creates the paralysis of choice. The constant comparison creates the impossibility of contentment. The attention fragmentation means that nothing , no idea, no relationship, no commitment , gets the sustained focus it requires to become something real.

The Sabbath, again, is not incidental here. It is a weekly repudiation of the noise economy. It says: for this day, the feed is closed. The notifications are silenced. You are not a user, a follower, or a consumer. You are a worshipper. Come and hear the voice that is older and stronger and deeper than any algorithm. Silence is where the soul remembers its address.

PART FOUR

RETURN

Spiritual and Existential Breakdown , The Deepest Domains

The final three domains of the RETURNING life are the deepest , not because they come last, but because they are the hardest to see in oneself. They are also the conditions most likely to be found not in the obvious far country, but inside the church itself.

I

ISOLATION

Hidden and Alone

The sinful man is a lonely man. All his friends deserted him , none to give him food.

Loneliness is the unspoken epidemic of our generation. Not aloneness , the simple fact of being by yourself , but isolation: the experience of being fundamentally unknown, unseen, unconnected to anything that holds you. The prodigal son had friends while the money was flowing. They disappeared with the last coin. This is the economy of false companionship: it costs exactly what you have, and it returns nothing when you need it most.

There is a particular form of isolation that lives inside the church, and it is more dangerous than the isolation of the far country because it is hidden in plain sight. The young person who sits in every Sabbath school, sings every song, attends every youth program , and yet carries a hidden life that no one in the church knows about. They are present but unknown. They are performing connection while experiencing none of it.

Let the young be careful when they receive parental attention. There will come a time when they will wish someone would give them even a husk of attention, and no one will. Look around for the young man who is now a heaviness to his mother , who has contracted an illness or lost his way, and even the people who once celebrated him have gone. Our generation does not want to marry, either. So they stay into their forties, with a pampering mother still calling them “boy,” needing to be nursed into adulthood because no one commissioned them into it.

The development of social media has not solved the isolation of our youth. It has deepened it. The platform provides the performance of community without its substance. You can have a thousand followers and no one who will sit with you at the lowest moment. You can post daily and never be truly seen. The research confirms it: cyberbullying enabled by social media platforms is now a documented driver of suicidal behaviour among Kenyan adolescents.

Hidden sin is always a symptom of isolation. What is hidden cannot be healed. The community of genuine friendship , the kind that can bear the weight of a real confession , is one of the most significant things the church can offer a running generation. This is not small group programming. It is the ancient function of covenant community: bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

A sheep lost in the wilderness knows it is lost and bleats for safety. But this cry could also invite wild dogs, lions, and hyenas. Young people need to learn to cry to Jesus , the Good Shepherd , in difficult times. Many Christians have been taken advantage of by crying to the wrong ears. False prophets multiply precisely because they meet genuine crying sheep who are in search of comfort and community. Young people have been inducted into devil worship because of poverty, because they sought help from the wrong people. Some have been drawn into betting pyramids that left them destitute. Many wolves have been sent out to hurt the sheep. But thank God , the Good Shepherd comes to the forest and arrives before the hyena. He will go after the lost until He finds it. And when it is found, it is placed on the shoulder, near the bosom, and carried home.

N

NUMBNESS

The Elder Brother’s Condition

Not all lostness is loud. Not all departure is geographical. There is a form of lostness that stays in the father’s house, attends all the right services, performs all the right behaviours , and yet has never been found. This is numbness. And it is the condition of the elder brother.

Performance Christianity is the religion of the numb. It is inherited faith that was never personally owned. It is the information-without-transformation that produces a young person who can recite the twenty-seven fundamental beliefs and has never once encountered the God behind them. It is the emotional dullness that comes from years of going through motions , Sabbath school, church, vespers, pathfinders , in a tradition that was once alive but has become a system of obligations rather than a living relationship.

The elder brother is the most frightening figure in the parable because he is the least suspected. He is the one who stayed. He served. He never departed. And he is just as lost as his brother , perhaps more lost, because his lostness is invisible even to himself. When the music starts and the party begins, he stands outside the gate with folded arms, refusing to join. Not because he lacks the invitation , but because he lacks the experience of grace that would make a party feel appropriate.

You can be in church and still be lost. You can know the text and not know the God of the text. You can be in the Sabbath school class every week and nurse a bitterness so old it feels like character. The elder brother’s question to his father is perhaps the saddest line in the parable: “What is this?” He hears the music. He hears the dancing. And he asks a servant what it means. He has lived in his father’s house and does not understand celebration. He does not understand grace , because he has never needed to receive it. Or so he believes.

The antidote to numbness is not more information. It is encounter. It is the personal, felt, transformative experience of grace , not as a doctrine to be affirmed, but as a reality to be received. The numb soul needs to come to itself just as surely as the prodigal did. It simply needs to see a different truth: not the truth of the pigsty, but the truth of the feast it has been standing outside of.

The woman who lost one of her ten coins (Luke 15) represents the church that has lost a vital truth. These ten coins represent the Ten Commandments , each a gem of covenant identity. There are churches that have lost the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). The seventh day, Saturday, is the Sabbath , the sign of God’s covenant with His people, the weekly reminder of creation, redemption, and the identity of those who belong to Him. A church with nine coins has lost purity and completeness. It must light the lamp of God’s Word, sweep through its programs and traditions, and search until the lost coin is found. The coin does not know it is lost. But the church has lost value because of its absence. All effort must be devoted to the recovery of every soul and every truth.

G

GRIEF

The Weight That Was Never Named

The final domain is grief , and it may be the most silently carried burden of the running generation.

Emotional neglect. Family conflict. Hidden grief. Silent suffering. Regret that has never been spoken aloud. Shame that has been carried so long it feels like identity. These are the weights that drive the running. And they are the weights that must be acknowledged before genuine return is possible.

A sinful state only leaves a man to the shadows of himself. A man with a proper home, worthy children, and a beautiful wife can still fool around in adultery with young girls , because his real poverty is not material but emotional. A woman whose husband is present in a home worth keeping can still listen to the sound of the devil and leave her home in divorce , because her grief was never addressed and her worth was never affirmed. We are never sensible of our own state and character of lostness when we are in it. We see everyone else’s pigsty but not our own.

The grief of the young Kenyan student who loses his school fees in a bet and sees no way forward is not small. The grief of the girl who has had an abortion she cannot tell anyone about is not small. The grief of the boy who has been sexually abused and has no language for what was done to him is not small. These are real griefs. They deserve real pastoral attention , not a counselling pamphlet, not a youth program that never creates space for the hard conversation, but genuine, unhurried, compassionate presence.

We must make home beautiful , loving and genuinely free , so that when our children run, as some will, the memory of that home draws them back. The young man in the parable is drawn back not only by hunger, but by the memory of goodness: the goodness of his father’s house, the love and order and benevolence he experienced there. Let us give our children something worth returning to.

In the end, there are only two lasting legacies we can leave our children: one is roots, and the other is wings. The roots keep them from drifting too far. The wings let them go without being lost. Both require intention. Both require grace.

PART FIVE

The Other Two Parables

The Sheep That Bleated and the Coin That Could Not Speak

Before Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son, He tells two shorter parables that prepare the ears of His listeners for what is coming. These are not merely introductions. They are theological foundations.

The Lost Sheep

Jesus said: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

A sheep lost in the wilderness knows it is lost. It bleats. It cries. This cry may draw the shepherd , but it also draws wolves and hyenas. The quality of what responds to a young person’s cry depends on where they are crying and to whom.

Most young people who cry are heard by the wrong ears first. False prophets multiply precisely because there are genuine, crying sheep in search of comfort and community. Young people have been inducted into devil worship because they sought help in a moment of poverty and found a wolf dressed as a shepherd. Some have been drawn into betting schemes and pyramid schemes that took everything they had in the currency of economic desperation. Many are the wolves sent out to hurt the sheep.

But thank God: the Good Shepherd comes to the forest and arrives before the hyena does. He will go after the lost until He finds it. Whatever God loses, He will find. Do not agree to be left in the wilderness today. Arise and go to His arms, and He will carry you home. When the sheep is found, the shepherd is joyful , no quarrelling, no asking for reasons why it was lost. You are placed on the shoulder, near the bosom, and carried home. Too tired to walk? Wounded and injured by the wilderness experience? Come to Jesus today.

The Lost Coin

A woman has ten coins and loses one. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds it. Then she calls her friends and neighbours together: “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.”

The ten coins in Jewish betrothal custom were a sign of total commitment , the mark of a woman’s covenant belonging. A woman who wore only nine was looked upon as having broken faith. The tenth coin was not merely money. It was identity and covenant completeness.

From a Seventh-day Adventist standpoint, these ten coins represent the Ten Commandments , God’s covenant with His people, the ten-part expression of His character and our identity as His children. A church that has lost even one of them has lost something vital , not merely a rule, but a marker of who it is and whose it is. The coin that is most commonly lost is the fourth: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.”

The church must light the lamp of God’s Word. Sweep through programs, traditions, and convenience. Search until the coin is found. The coin does not know it is lost. But the church has lost value because of its absence. All efforts should be put into the salvation of souls, and nothing should be spared in the search.

When the coin is found, there is a celebration. Heaven rejoices over every soul recovered, every truth restored, every young person who stops running and starts returning.

PART SIX

He Came to Himself

The Moment of Awakening

Three words. He came to himself.

In the original language, the phrase implies a return to interior consciousness , as if the person had been somewhere else and suddenly, unexpectedly, is back. He sees things in a different light from what he did before. Doomscrolling is revealed as addiction , the undermining of the brain, a waste of time, and a manufacturer of the very anxiety it pretends to relieve. His madness left him. His eyes were opened. Evidence of his father’s goodness broke through his stupor and opened his perception.

He is not merely hungry, broke, or lonely. His eyes are open. He stops masking. He names his situation as sin , not as bad luck, not as trauma, not as unfair systems, corruption, or unfortunate choices. He does not say: “my friends ruined me.” He does not say: “the famine was not my fault.” He does not want to cover his situation anymore. He is tired of it. He turns from the sin , not just a change of location, but a change of heart, a change of purpose, and a restored relationship. Many sinners crawl from their sin hoping it catches up with them. They are only sorry they got caught, sick, broke, or lost the bet. But they do not come to themselves.

The convinced sinner stops comparing himself with other rebels. He stops benchmarking his lostness against people who are more visibly lost. He begins to compare himself with the happy people in his father’s house. “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”

Reflection is not strategic thinking or human intelligence and planning. It is divine illumination. It is the grace of God allowing a man to see himself honestly, without the filters of self-justification or the noise of the far country.

He remembered his father. His goodness. His love. The order and benevolence of the home he had abandoned. This memory became a road. To look unto God as a Father , and as our Father , is of great use in repentance and return. Our Father will be happy to receive us. We know this because we can feel His hand knocking at our door. Since we left home, He has never been settled. He has never known peace. He has always been looking at the gate, expecting our return.

The Decision to Arise: Four Steps Any of Us Can Take

The young man makes four steps that any of you, if you are young and lost, can take today.

Step One: Reflection and Questions

Most lives have never been examined , whether homeless, Godless, fatherless, or prodigal. When he came to himself, he began to ask: “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” He asks how many are at home, peaceful, with the father, provided for and decent. Many are living outside themselves, in other people’s shadows, in unsatisfying positions, with poor grades, fulfilling empty routines, starving to death. Reflection begins when you stop measuring yourself against others in the far country and start asking whether this is the life you were made for.

Step Two: Recognition

He recognises where he went wrong and says: “I have sinned against heaven and before thee.” You cannot correct yourself if you cannot know where you went wrong. What wrong decision have you made? Is it your company and your friends? Is it a habit that has become an addiction? Blessed is the man who feels the conviction of God and sees his own misery. Blessed is the one who starts to feel the drawing of God’s Spirit , for the goodness of God leads to repentance.

Step Three: Resolution

He says: “I will arise.” He takes personal responsibility. No playing the victim. No waiting for someone to carry him. This is the sign of humility , to stand when everyone else is seated, to take the first step while the outcome is still uncertain. He did not care how the villagers would see his torn clothes, or what his age-mates would think about him coming back to Jesus. This is the quality of a good decision: it moves regardless of what the crowd thinks.

Step Four: Return

This is the movement that makes everything else real. Just by reflection, resolution, and recognition of guilt, the young man is no longer lost. Though he has wasted the treasure of his manhood , wasted time and life, his intellect dimmed and his aspirations distant, sitting in a dry, parched land stricken with famine , he rises to go back. No amount of sin would deface his image and make the father forget his son. He was still recognisable. The image of the father was in him. And it was still in him even after everything the far country had done.

You too can arise. Resolutely quit the bondage of addiction, drugs, anger, and sexual sin. Return to God by prayer, notwithstanding the fears and the discouragements. The fears are real. The answer to them is not the elimination of risk. The answer is the glimpse of the father running.

PART SEVEN

The Elder Brother and the Religious Lost

There Is Always Someone Who Spoils the Party

Jesus told this parable , and the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin before it , as a direct response to the Pharisees who were angry that He received sinners. And so woven into the end of the greatest story ever told is one of the most sobering portraits in all of Scripture: the elder brother.

He has served. He has stayed. He has been faithful by every external measure. And when the music starts and the party begins, he is standing outside the gate , not because he was not invited, but because he cannot bring himself to go in. His complaint is not irrational: “These many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.”

This is the voice of earned righteousness. Of a man who has confused service with sonship, obligation with relationship, rule-keeping with knowing the Father. He has served faithfully and never had a party. Not because the Father withheld parties from him, but because he never asked. The Father’s answer is gentle but devastating: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” He has been living as a servant in his own father’s house.

In Jesus’ day, when a young man disgraced his village and squandered his father’s wealth, the elders had a ceremony waiting for his return. It was called Kisaza. When the young man was seen approaching, the elders would gather at the gate, hold up a clay pot, shout a word of curse over him, and break the pot. The breaking of the pot was a declaration: this man has severed his ties with the community. For him to be restored, he would need to collect every shard of the broken pot and reassemble it , and only then would restoration be considered. It was a public humiliation designed to last.

Do you understand now why the Father had to run? He was not running merely out of eagerness. He was running to reach his son before the village elders could reach him first. He was running to throw himself between the shame of the community and the dignity of his returning child. No scornful eye will fall upon my son. Better that I take the shame.

The Pharisees , the elder brothers of every generation , are never happy with others who have experienced grace, because they have not experienced it themselves, though they live in its house. They are like the man who applied to be a lifeguard but admitted he could not swim. They try to save others from water they have never entered. Their great work is accusation and contempt upon those whom the Lord has shed His precious blood to redeem.

You can be in church and still be lost. The elder brother’s question , “What is this?” , is the saddest line in the parable. He hears the music. He hears the dancing. And he asks a servant what it means. He has lived in his father’s house and does not understand celebration. He does not understand grace.

Lostness can be loud or quiet. The one who reflects only on his brother’s character gets more lost. He will not rejoice with his father. He cannot join the feast of repentance, nor understand what it means to be lost and found.

PART EIGHT

The Welcome of the Father

He Ran

"But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

Read that again.

When he was yet a great way off. This means the father was watching. This means the father was looking. This means that while the son was in the pigsty, in the far country, in the middle of shame and rags and his rehearsed speech , his father was at the gate, looking down the road, waiting.

The father sees him from afar. He is still a son, though disfigured by disobedience, poverty, and famine. The father still recognises his image in his son. Sin cannot erase the image of God in a man as long as he is facing home. God will see you. God will recognise you from far off. God will have compassion.

Not the formal pardon of tolerating your presence , this is a moved-within mercy. He can relate. He is touched with your infirmity. He has been waiting. He has not been settled since you left. He has never known peace, and has always been looking at the gate.

He ran. He embraced. He kissed him , not once, but again and again. This is not a cold greeting. This is hasty, warm, repeated, public affection. The father reads the rags before he hears the confession. He knows and feels the need before he has judged the conduct. He does not place the son in probationary servanthood. He restores sonship immediately. He does not permit scornful eyes to be cast on his son. No mockery. No rebuke from the father. No lecture. He is a son, who was lost but has been recovered alive.

This is not just a nice parent. This is the heart of God, and how He right now , today, at this moment , feels about anyone who will stop running and start returning.

The Robe, the Ring, the Shoes, and the Feast

The Robe: Identity Restored

The robe is the robe of righteousness. Not the son’s own righteousness , which was in rags , but the righteousness of the father’s house, which covers everything. The crowd may write labels. But Jesus rewrites identity.

There is a story I have heard that captures this precisely. A woman had struggled with deep emotional pain for most of her life. Eventually she saw a psychotherapist who helped her trace the pain to a childhood memory. Her teacher had taken a dislike to her. One day the teacher called her to the front of the class and said: “Write on the board: I am a failure.” The girl stood trembling and wrote the words. Then the teacher turned to the class and said: “Each of you, come forward and write what you think about her.” One by one they walked to the front and wrote cruel, mean, painful words.

The therapist said: “As a Christian I believe something else happened in that classroom that day. When everyone finished writing on the board, there was Someone sitting at the back. His name was Jesus. He stood up. He walked to the front. He picked up an eraser. He erased everything written on that board. Then He wrote new words: ‘I love you. I forgive you.’”

That is what the robe does. God’s favourite tool is the eraser. He loves to wipe the slate clean. Some parents run a travel agency for guilt trips , they can make a child feel lower than a swine. Jesus runs a recovery agency. He is the artist who goes back to the village store and sees in the window one of his own paintings , scratched, the frame torn, dirty , and buys it back. He pays the price. He takes it home. He washes it, reframes it, and repairs every damage with the expert hand of the one who originally created it. This is what Jesus does for us. He runs an art rehabilitation. A doctor once said that if he could get forgiveness to his patients, he could discharge ninety percent of them. The robe of Christ’s righteousness covers all sins , as long as we are willing to return and confess. He is faithful and just.

The Ring: Economic Identity Restored

The ring is not a wedding ring , though it would be good for parents to encourage their children to prepare for marriage. The ring I refer to here was, for a Hebrew boy, a token of provision and authority. When a young man had attained adulthood, he received the family ring , the seal of identity and access. The stores of those days held large blocks of wax. A young man wanting to acquire provision from a store would press the ring into the wax, and the cost would be charged to his father’s account. The ring said: you are my son. My resources are available to you. My name covers you.

We must review whether the ring still fits the fingers of our children. Educational systems that train for irrelevance , that put no ring of practical authority in the hands of graduates , are sending young people into the world with nothing to press into the wax. We must put rings on our children’s fingers: signs that we have transferred to them economic responsibility and the dignity of adulthood. We must empower our returning young people to own and to have dominion.

There is a responsibility here for the school. Before our students graduated in earlier, better times, they were already employed, given a decent start, given the ring. Today we must ask honestly: does the ring still fit? Does what we teach prepare the young to stand in the marketplace? Or are we still pushing husks?

The Shoes: Readiness for Service

Barefoot was the condition of a slave. Shoes were the condition of a free man. To put shoes on the son’s feet was to declare his freedom from the pigsty. The shoes represent readiness. Readiness for service , because out of service they will make a living, earn respect, and grow happy. The church must put shoes on the feet of the young. Prepare them for usefulness. Commission them into service. Do not merely receive them emotionally and leave them materially stranded.

The Feast: Grace Is Public

The restoration is not private. Not a quiet dinner. Not a careful reconciliation behind closed doors. A feast. Music. Dancing. Fatted calf. A public celebration. The father makes the restoration communal and exuberant. This , Jesus says to the Pharisees, to the elder brothers, to every religious spirit that resents the grace of God , this is how heaven feels when one sinner repents. Not indifference. Not careful acknowledgment. A feast.

See the plan of the hasty welcome and the two levels of restoration. Restore emotionally , with a hug, acceptance, a kiss, an embrace, and being invited back home as a son. But also restore materially and economically , a shoe, a ring, clothes, and a party. We must labour to restore our returning young people at both levels. Afford them a good mind, but also give them tools for economic identity and restoration.

PART NINE

The Story of Onede

He Knew My Sin , But He Did Not Know My Repentance

When I was young, I made a mistake while playing with a wicked friend and broke a school glass window. Our school was one of the first places where glass windows were a symbol of class , protected by the whole community, because careless children playing ball could shatter them. And that is what happened to me. I kicked the ball and it went straight for the glass.

A young man named Onede was watching. Before the ball even hit the glass, he was already shouting with the kind of wickedness that sits close to satanic accusation , that I had broken it. The ball seemed to slow down in my eyes, as if to prove Onede wrong. I hoped it would hit the frame. I hoped the glass would hold. But what I heard next was the crackling of broken glass. By the time the second piece hit the ground, Onede had started chanting: “Owino broke the glass!” He gathered other voices around him until they were all marching toward the staffroom together.

In a spark of the moment, our eyes met. I winked at him and pressed my hand to my mouth , a signal: cover me, and I will give you my food. He silenced. But he kept reminding me every time our eyes met. Just before break, he came and took a large portion of my food. And still he wanted more.

The next day I carried sweet potatoes. During break, I went to a hidden corner. But just before I started eating, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I did not even see Onede’s face , I only saw his hand, signalling that I should divide. Not equal portions. He wanted the larger part. When I asked for fairness, he began the song. To silence him, I kept giving.

Then came the day my mother made mandazis from maize flour. Those of you from an older generation know what I mean , they were special. Warm. Different from anything ordinary. I was unsettled as break time approached. I went to the farthest corner of the compound and pulled out my food. When I reached for the first mandazi, a wicked hand appeared next to my chin. Without looking, I broke off a small piece and offered it , assuming it was one of the usual beggars of the school compound. But I heard a familiar click. It was Onede.

He demanded three mandazis , or he would report me for breaking the glass. I was left with one mandazi and one last moment of patience. I broke into tears. And in the middle of the tears, an idea came to me.

Surely I could just go and confess to the principal. Tell him what happened , that I accidentally broke a glass window while playing.

I took the heavy steps toward the principal’s office, tears and saliva mixing with the last mandazi I was carrying. He saw me from afar and knew I was in distress. He did not wait for me to reach him. He stepped forward like a loving father, leaned down, and asked what was the matter. I sobbed out my confession. Promised to be careful. And as if I were dreaming, he said: “It is okay. Please go to class. You are a good boy.”

I felt a huge rock roll away from my back. The rest of the day I was unusually happy.

That evening, my mother cooked the first chapati I ever saw. They tasted like manna in pizza form. She handed me my piece and added an extra for tomorrow’s lunch. I kept it safely and could not wait for school. Break time seemed to take too long that day. I kept smiling at Onede. When the bell rang, I was the first one out.

With my lunch box, I walked to the highest point in the field, sat down facing the classroom, and removed my chapati. Onede made his way over, as expected. I saw him coming but acted blind. He arrived. He stuck out his hand. I pretended he did not exist. He threatened. He started the song. But I ate slowly, unhurried, and unbothered. I finished to the very last piece, cleared my throat, and joined him in the song he had begun.

There was one thing he did not know. I had been forgiven.

I could live free, eat my food in peace, and have a settled conscience. The rest of the day was mine.

Is there anyone here who has been playing with Onede? Who made a mistake , or many , and now the enemy will not let your conscience rest? Who keeps remembering the past, replaying the shame, dividing portions to a voice that threatens to expose what you already know about yourself?

Think of this boy. He only reflected, arose, and returned. The principal did not need the glass window to be replaced before he spoke the word of grace. He only needed a tearful, honest confession from a boy who was tired of running. That is all the Father needs from you.

PART TEN

The Call Home

A Final Word to the Young, the Parents, the Church, and the Schools

We have walked through the entire story now , the departure, the far country, the famine, the pigsty, the coming to himself, the return, the running father, the robe and ring and shoes, the feast, the elder brother standing outside in his self-righteous grief. We have named the nine domains of the returning life. We have sat with Onede. Now there is only one thing left to do.

Lostness can be loud or quiet. The loud kind runs to the far country with its inheritance in hand and ends in pig food. The quiet kind stays in the father’s house, keeps every rule, performs every duty, and slowly hardens into a person who cannot celebrate grace because they have never needed to receive it , or so they believe. Both need to come home. Both are invited.

The road home is opened by grace, not self-repair. You cannot fix yourself into the father’s favour. Mercy made the son’s steps light. And when it got heavy nearer home, it was met by a father who covered the hardest ground , who ran the last stretch so that the son did not have to walk it alone.

To the Young

You were not made for the pigsty. You were not made for the far country. You were not made for addiction, shame, or the slow death of a double life. You were made for your Father’s house , and your Father’s house has more than enough bread for you.

Stop comparing yourself with others in the far country. The comparison that matters is between where you are and where you were made to be. Between the pigsty and the party. Between the rags and the robe.

The three teenagers we met at the beginning of this book are not just characters. They are a choice. You can be Letisha, drowning in substances and consequences, depending on broken friends for broken support. You can be Arnie, whose violence and gambling have taken him further from home than he ever intended to go. Or you can be Katie , twelve years old, looking at a need in her community, and deciding to be the answer rather than the problem. You can be the one who tries. Who leads. Who builds.

You too can arise today. Resolutely quit the bondage of addiction. Quit the bondage of sexual sin, of gambling, of anger and bitterness, of comparison and shame. Arise, and go to your Father. He already sees you coming. He is already running.

To the Parents

Make home beautiful. Make it loving and genuinely free. Not a prison dressed as a home. Not a performance space where only achievement is celebrated. A home where your children know they are loved before they succeed, loved after they fail, and loved through the running and the returning.

When they run , as some will , let there be something worth returning to. Let there be a memory of goodness strong enough to draw them back from whatever far country they find themselves in. Be the kind of father who runs before the village gets there. Be the kind of mother whose goodness lives in the memory of your children like bread when they are hungry.

Do not send supplies to your children in rebellion. Do not stabilise them in their disobedience. But when they turn and come home , run to them. Throw the robe before they finish the speech. Put the ring on their finger. Call the feast. And remember: there are two lasting legacies. Roots. And wings.

To the Schools and Educational Institutions

The story of the pig farm is partly a story about formation failure. Young people are being prepared for a world that has already passed. They are graduating into irrelevance because what they have been given is husks , empty content in polished packaging , rather than the ring, the shoes, and the living skills of genuine adulthood.

Excellent education puts shoes on their feet , readiness for service, because out of service they will make a living and earn respect. It puts rings on their fingers , economic identity and the authority to act in the world with competence and dignity. It trains them for the present and the future, not for a past that no longer exists. May every school and every teacher guide students toward higher forms of learning , useful skills, discipline, and genuine usefulness.

And may every school pay attention to the mental health of its students. One in five Kenyan adolescents may be depressed. More than a quarter carry thoughts of ending their lives. These students are in your classrooms every Monday morning. They need more than a curriculum. They need someone who will notice them before the Onede in their lives breaks them completely.

To the Church

We sent them off as Christians and some returned as strangers. We must ask ourselves what kind of home we have been. Have we been the kind of community that celebrates when the lost return? Or have we been the elders at the gate, holding up the pot of shame?

The Kisaza ceremony is still performed in our churches. We just do it with words instead of pottery. The young man who returns after years of wandering knows before he walks through the door whether he will be received or interrogated. Whether the robe will come first, or the lecture. Whether the feast will be called, or the meeting of the deacons to review his case.

Let the church be the community of the found , not the community of the never-lost. Let the Sabbath school be a place where all nine domains of the returning life are openly addressed: where restlessness is met with the rest of the Sabbath, where esteem is rebuilt from the inside out, where temptation is named and not hidden, where uncertainty is held in the confidence of divine calling, where relationships are modelled by fathers and mothers who have not hardened, where noise is repudiated in weekly communion with the Living God, where isolation is broken by genuine community, where numbness is melted by an encounter with grace, and where grief is brought to the Father and left there.

Put shoes on their feet. Give them rings on their fingers. Empower, equip, and commission. Do not just receive them emotionally and leave them materially stranded.

A Final Word

God is at the gate. God is at the door. He is knocking , not impatiently, not with a list of conditions, not with a pot ready to be broken. He is knocking with the sound of a father who has been watching, waiting, and ready since the moment you left.

Do you hear Him today?

Why don’t you open the door?

The nine letters of your return spell out your invitation:

R , Restlessness can become rest.

E , Esteem can be rebuilt from the inside out.

T , Temptation can be named, confessed, and broken.

U , Uncertainty can be walked through with the courage of faith.

R , Relationships can be healed, formed, and consecrated.

N , Noise can be quieted enough to hear the Father’s voice.

I , Isolation can give way to genuine, covenant community.

N , Numbness can be shattered by a real encounter with grace.

G , Grief can be carried to the Father and left at His feet.

STOP RUNNING.

START RETURNING.

Luke 15:20