You are very familiar with the story. The prodigal son leaves the home of his father to live what he believed to be his best life, but he ended up in a filthy pig pen, starving, envying the pigs their slop.

Prodigals today do the same thing. They leave relationship with their heavenly Father to live what they believe will be their best lives, but they end up in filthy pig pens, starving spiritually, participating in the slop of the enemy.

The pig pen is just the place for our prodigals to “come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil” (2 Timothy 2:16 NKJV). It is just the place where hope can rise enough for them to get up and come back to the Father’s house!

Some prodigals literally live in a filthy mess, in a dark place, with their priorities being sin rather than personal hygiene or caring for their home or things they have. They live like pigs in a pig sty.

But the pig pen is a place of hope.

The pig pen is where the prodigal son came to his senses and realized he was better with his father, that things were better in his father’s house.

The pig pen was the place where he woke up and decided he would leave the sty and go back to his father.

The pig pen is where hope arose for the prodigal son.

When we see the pig pens in which our prodigals live, we have a tendency to want to change them or pray them away. Perhaps instead we should pray for hope to arise in them and that they will come to their senses. Perhaps we should pray for God to use it and then smile and thank God for the place where awakening can happen, because …

The pig pen is a place of hope!