For a number of our readers, particularly the seniors among us, there have been times in our lives when “normal” was anything but normal. Some still retain vivid memories of the Second World War and the suffering, privation, and loss that accompanied it. During that difficult time, it might have seemed there was no end in sight. But the dark night did pass, and a new day dawned. Others remember the tumultuous decade of 1960s where assassinations, riots, space exploration, and other epochal events seemed to shift the very foundation on which our society rested. It could be reasonably argued that we have never recovered from that era but are increasingly experiencing its bitter fruits. Still others, especially our relatively younger readers, have never known life without computers, cell phones, the internet, and other technological developments that, in reality, have not existed all that long. It’s becoming increasingly hard to remember life before such inventions, isn’t it? On New Year’s Day, it’s typical to look forward, not backward. Yet it is becoming harder to do that. So much has changed in the past two years, and at such an astonishing pace, that it is challenging to picture what a new normal might look like. It’s also unsettling to concede the normal we used to know might never return. We are losing our illusion of control. These are uncharted waters. What is the church of God to make of all this? The following suggests one line of thought. Today I read the well-known parable of the lost son. I reflected on how, by God’s remarkable grace and mercy, I was that son. Soon after, I sat to write this article. I realized we all are that lost son, “we” being the church in the West. It is important to observe that the father in the parable didn’t prevent his son from going to the far country and wasting his substance with riotous living. God doesn’t always restrain, at first, those He intends to help. Surely the church hasn’t devolved to such a degree as that young man—or has it? Shall we reflect on that question a moment before drawing our conclusion? How much righteous indignation, earnest prayer, and lawful action have we undertaken in opposition to the decades of carnage visited upon the unborn and, more recently, the elderly? To what extent does immorality thrive, not only apart from, but also inside of, the church, whether actually or virtually? What might be the proportion of time and resources we invest in the eternal welfare of others compared with what we expend on ourselves for pleasure and comfort, or edification instead of entertainment? Do we pride ourselves over doctrinal orthodoxy and our experiential emphasis while passively observing multitudes shrouded in darkness and dropping into the eternal inferno? What should our “new normal” be? What was the prodigal’s new normal? Repentance, confession, and return. He concerned himself, as it turned out needlessly, over his father’s reception. The latter did not need to hear all that his son planned to say. A couple of lines sufficed. A celebration followed the embrace of acceptance and forgiveness. I am frankly concerned that we may enter the New Year focusing on trees and missing forests, treating symptoms yet ignoring diseases, bemoaning lost liberties while neglecting God’s calling. We are in the far country. The famine is just starting. Will we come to ourselves and head home, resolved to repent, or will we wait till all that we have left to live on are husks? Would to God that instead of “Happy New Year,” we might this year be able to say to one another, “Welcome home.”