Rebellion Rewarded?

Today i was a few minutes into a game of chinese chess on viwawa when i got the call to go downstairs with the trolley to bring up groceries. The game had a time limit of 15 mins, anyone who took longer than that in total auto loses. As it was online playing with other ppl, obviously you cant pause the game. my mom was busy and joel was topless and refused to go. so i decided to be obedient, just leave the game runing and quickly went down to collect, intending to rush it through and get back.

So i huriedly got down and unloaded the groceries. i demanded for the card to open the gate so i could go up first. my dad took his own sweet time to handle his heliconias, told me to wait, then strolled to the gate. thats when be both realised we both didnt bring a card! im not really appreciating this 'security feature' in the condo, its more of a hassle. i was never given a card for myself and i assumed my dad had one. he also assumed i would bring one (even though its just going downstairs to fetch groceries...) so now we were locked outside, and my dad had to call joel to come down with the card to let us in. i was thinking to myself, 'gone, game over alr. nvm la, just lose lor.' i was silently blaming joel for my loss cos he didnt go instead.

when we got back up, i went back to my game, my timer had only 3 minutes remaining. i quickly made my move and my opponent came back soon. But what followed left me amazed... my opponent (who was higher level than me) made a series of really stupid mistakes, and when i still had 1+ min left, he surrendered! im thinking, this must be really God's reward for me for being obedient and making the sacrifice.

I was reading the passage on the prodigal son for qt, and the last part of the story left me with some doubts. Reference Luke 15:11-31
so we are familiar with how the story goes, the son rebels against his father, demands his inheritance and then leaves the family. squanders his wealth, gets into dire situation and decides to return and repent. Now while how the father reacted reflects God's forgiving nature who will accept us back no matter what we did if we repent, the brother comes in and makes the story complicated in application.

"the older brother became angry and refused to go in. so his father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'lo, these many years i have served you, and i never disobeyed your commands; yet you never gave me a young goat that i may make merry with my friends. but when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fattened calf!' And he said to him,' son, you are always with me and everything i have is yours. but it was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive, was lost, and is found."

the father made full acceptance of the younger son, fully restoring his status as his son and forgetting all about his rebellion. he became on par with his elder brother. whats more, the son actually got rewarded for returning! So this could lead ppl to think, if we remain faithful to God, we dont get anything for it, not even a token of appreciation or in this case, a young goat to celebrate with friends. But if we rebel and later come back, we would be fully restored and in addition, given a big token of apprecation! Is it really free for us to stray and then come back? is it really better to do that way to get a blessing? will we really be given nothing if we stay faithful?

yes the father said that everything he has belongs to his elder son. but thats only logically right, because the younger son had already taken his share, so whats left obviously goes to the other! the elder did not receive anything extra at all. i fully understand his dissatisfaction.

well i cant bring myself to think and believe that way. it should be reasonable to assume, God does recognise our faithfulness and what we have done for Him. Just that He will not show us extra favour or give extra blessings of earthly and material things. our reward would not be on earth, but stored up in heaven. any deeper than that i shall not go, but leave it to God to reveal. after all, there are cases of rewards, like what i mentioned above.