The wrong kind of elder brother

Prodigal
1. Recklessly extravagant
2. Having spent everything

Having just finished Timothy Keller's The Prodigal God, I can't help but realize no matter how hard I try, I always catch myself acting like the elder brother. Keller breaks down the most famous parables Christ told, The Prodigal Son. He breaks the parable into to different acts. Act 1 titled The Lost Younger Brother and Act 2 titled The Lost Elder Brother.

Keller goes on to explain the younger brother appears to be more lost than the elder brother because of his immoral lifestyle. However the elder brother is just as lost if not even more so. He hates the fact that his younger brother had wasted all of the inheritance and now his father is going to throw the biggest feast the town has ever seen, using his share of the inheritance.

The younger brother is not afraid to hide his sins, he wears them on his sleeves. He does not care what others think of him. The elder brother loves to do everything right and hates to be frowned upon. He often hides his sins so it looks as if he does not do wrong.

The elder brother is not truly a brother to his younger brother. Had he been, he would have gone out and looked for his younger brother. He would have done everything he could have to make sure his younger returned home. He would have been thrilled to see his younger brother return. He would have ran with his father to greet him.

Between these two, I would label myself the elder brother. I often look to do everything right and nothing wrong in the eyes of society. I often look down upon those who openly "sin." I do all of this while trying to hide the fact that I sin just as much as they do and possibly more. I hate that I do all of this. It really sucks. It's funny cause the more and more I think I am becoming less and less like the elder brother, I look at my life and realize that I am just as much like the elder brother as I had been before.

One thing I would really really really really like to think I'm different from the elder brother is that I would truly be an elder brother in the sense of having a younger sibling that I care for and would go to the ends of the world to find and bring back home.