I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

What constitutes a full life? How do we actually attain the life of which Jesus spoke – the one full of abundance, contentment and fruitfulness, where we live in the quiet confidence of God’s great love for us? How does an ordinary person find the key to a spiritual existence that delivers on the promises we hear so much about, but seldom see played out in our everyday lives?

Those are the questions I have pondered for years. If the answer was simply “more knowledge about the Bible” then it would seem more of us would be living that life, if only by virtue of the fact we’re alive at a time when access to information has never been so accessible to the masses. Any number of software programs and websites put the Scriptures at our fingertips, inviting us to quickly search and take in all that the Bible has to say on any easily searched topic.

But it’s not just knowledge we need. Knowledge without understanding is simply an exercise in becoming educated beyond our own intelligence, the ability to give the “right” answer without really knowing why it’s the right answer. The pursuit of knowledge alone will leave us smart in our heads, but empty where it counts the most, barren and hollow in our hearts.

As I see it, that’s one of the main problems among believers today. In our quest to develop a sound theology, we’ve reduced the inscrutable mysteries of God into a series of doctrinal statements about this, that and the other thing, attempting to wrap our minds around something we can only fully fathom with our hearts.

Christianity was never intended to be an exercise in intellectual superiority, where we “prove” that we’re right and everyone else is wrong. Instead, it’s intended to be life – vital, growing, soul-changing life – that refreshes not only us, but everyone around us as well.

I’m convinced that’s why Jesus, by and large, spent most of His ministry telling stories. He didn’t give lectures. He didn’t teach doctrine. He told stories. Stories that connect us to the reality of life as we know and live it. Stories that illustrate truths we wouldn’t otherwise understand. Stories that illuminate the very heart of God. Stories that make manifest the life He freely offers us, a life of fullness and abundance.

It is in the stories that we find our way, for in those stories we see ourselves, fully exposed, laid open and bare in ways that invite a closer look, a more thorough examination of who we are and how we’ve been living. It’s not about knowledge, per se; it’s about understanding, an understanding that penetrates deeply when we see and feel and experience ourselves as the actor on the stage, the character in the play that is unfolding before us.

Of all the stories Jesus told, one has captured my heart like no other. I think it’s the most elegant parable of all, the very heart of the Gospel, a saga that unites the love and compassion of God with those who have gone out of their way to prove they don’t deserve it.

It’s a story Jesus told in response to muttering by religious leaders of His day regarding the people He was hanging out with – tax collectors and other sordid types. To address their complaint regarding His “inappropriate behavior,” Jesus tells three parables in succession, about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. They’re presented in that order, each building upon the other, each illustrating the very essence of God’s heart. If you had 100 sheep and lost one, said Jesus, would you not leave the 99 behind to look for the one, and when you found it, would you not rejoice? And if you had ten silver coins and lost one, would you not search carefully for the one that’s missing, and rejoice when you found it?

One out of a hundred sheep is valuable, one of ten coins more so. But those two stories merely set the stage for what comes next: If a father lost a son, and then – miracle of miracles – found him again, would he not rejoice?

It all depends whom you ask.

What I love best about this parable is that we see ourselves. It’s as though Jesus is holding a giant mirror in front of us as He speaks, inviting us to look intently at the image reflecting back. There’s something all too familiar about those brothers, those two sons of their father, and it makes no difference your gender or birth order as you interact with this tale. In them we see us, in ways that plumb the depths of our soul and reveal parts of our hearts that, frankly, we’d rather not see. In their issues we find our issues, timeless and universal, played out in ways that inform and give insight to our own life, our own journey, if we’ll but take the time to look, listen and learn.

The theme of being “lost” runs cover to cover throughout the Scripture. Isaiah tells us that we all “like sheep have gone astray, each has turned to his own way.” In the New Testament, Jesus often reminds us that the primary purpose for which He left heaven was “to seek and to save that which is lost.”

Which is to say, we’ve all been the prodigal, in one form or another. Likewise, we’ve each played the role of the elder brother, reacting to the grace of God extended toward others in self-righteous and self-protecting ways. And we’re all called to be the father, extending unconditional love and compassion toward those who have hurt us, those who have no right to even ask for forgiveness, much less receive it.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus invites us to find the life we all long for: a life that’s full and abundant and free, a life that reflects a heart transformed by the very love and compassion of God. We won’t get there by studying doctrine, nor by denying our humanity, in some misguided attempt to “live above” our inclination to veer off in our own direction; rather, we’ll find fullness by immersing ourselves in the story of our lives, acknowledging that we, like everyone else, are prone to wander, prone to rebellion and resentment, in need of compassion and forgiveness and kindness and love.

Only by seeing the truth for what it is will we ever open the door to true and lasting change, change that ushers in a new understandingabout both ourselves and God, and in the process brings to us the life we’ve been seeking all along.

Knowing those things is one thing; interacting with them as they play out through the characters in the story is quite another. It’s the difference, I think, between knowledge and understanding.

In my book “The Prodigal” you’ll read a story. It’s a tale of potential and rebellion, recovery and forgiveness, resentment and compassion. It’s not just some story – it’s your story and my story. It’s the pathway we all follow, in some form or fashion, in our attempt to deal with the complexities of life, our attempt to fill the empty places within.

It’s the parable Jesus told, as I have imagined it unfolding – a “story inside a parable.” It’s our story…and it speaks as loudly today as it did when it was first told.

(Adapted from the introduction to “The Prodigal: A Story Inside a Parable” by Mark Evans.