What are we really after?

We live in a culture where images and words create an illusionary reality that leaves us with a lot of angst. We claim this is what we value, yet our behaviors violate there very thing we claim is important to us. We spend incredible amounts of money on our kids as a nation, yet our practice is to kill an inordinate amount of those same children through abortion. I know all the arguments about bringing unwanted children into the world, increasing the poor index etc. We live in a world that is willing to bail out a car company to the tune of 6 billion dollars while 143 million orphans go hungry. For all out talk about compassion, social justice and eliminating hunger, pragmatically speaking, it still is primarily about us. The older brother in the story Jesus tells, claims to have always obeyed the Father, yet the one most important responsibility where he was to go out and find his younger brother, he failed to obey. We all have far too much older brother in us . . . where our words sound pretty impressive but when evaluated in light of the Fathers grace, they are found wanting. May our behaviors line up with our values so that we can create a culture of forgivness and grace.