Chains Of The Prodigal Brother

Henri Nouwen once wrote, “One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness.” Why is it that it is so difficult to receive God’s forgiveness? Why is it so hard to truly embrace God’s unmerited affection? Why do Christians so often fall back into performance-based religion? Why is it so challenging to trust God during the hard times in life? What does Genesis really mean by the “knowledge of good and evil,” and how does it keep us from accepting God’s grace? Why does the prayer posture of modern Christianity look like a slave cowering before a cruel master, while the prayer posture of early Christians looked like a little child waiting for his daddy to scoop him up in his arms?