This morning’s ‘Life of Life’ QT meditation began with the passage about **‘The Prodigal Son’**. It tells of a son who squandered his inheritance from his living father, becoming a destitute man reduced to eating pig feed, and then, as a last resort, decided “it would be better to be a servant in my father’s house” and returned. It speaks of the father’s heart, who slaughtered a fattened calf and prepared a feast to welcome him home, and of the older brother who watched this with envy.

I deeply empathize with the younger brother’s heart—having once squandered his life in debauchery, drifted from God, hit rock bottom, and then experienced God’s grace anew. He must have lived a life of daily gratitude, feeling as if everything given back to him was like a dream, recalling his past of eating pig feed. But I wondered why the older brother, watching this unfold beside him, didn’t rejoice over his returned brother and instead envied the father’s love.

Perhaps a sense of deprivation—feeling the father’s love stolen by an unworthy brother—and the envy born of comparison blinded him to the love and grace he had received all along. The father reminds him, “You have always been with me, and everything I have is yours,” awakening him to the blessings he already enjoys. Yet the older brother seems unable to fully escape his mindset of comparison. Seeing how Lucifer, once an angel, fell into pride by comparing himself to God, attempting to ascend to His place and thus becoming Satan, makes me realize anew how comparison can be such a terrifying seed of sin.

So today, too, I recall the memories of hitting rock bottom while delivering packages in the past, and with a grateful heart, I rise at dawn for meditation. I start my day with training, company work, washing dishes, preparing breakfast, and listening to the news. But what ever became of that brother who ended up getting so irritated?