“HEY DAD! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO?
See? I can make this swing go REEEEAL high!”
“Yeah Shug, I see that,” came my Father’s muffled voice from under the hood of our car.
“See me now Daddy? Dad see? The other girls can’t do this. Dad do you see? Watch, I’ll do it again. Look at me.”
“Yes, I see. Hey, has Mom seen you do that yet? Why don’t you show her too.”
(Bless his patient heart!)
As great of a Father as I had, he was not a perfect man.
And with older siblings I felt like I had to constantly compete for his attention. I tried to be the funniest, wittiest, most talented or even the most disobedient to gain the spotlight.
Because of this misconception of a Father figure, it was hard for me to relate to a loving God. I basically approached God in two different ways.
Drive-through prayers:
In case of an emergency I would place “my order” and speed away as fast as possible before he could tell me “no” or how displeased
He was with me about something I did or didn’t do.
Then I entered my confessional “camp out” phase.
I would go before Him, pull up a lawn chair and proceed to go into great detail of how I failed in so many areas and then I would promise to make things right in the future. (I wonder if He dreaded this time as much as I did. Lol!)
You know, after all of this I would end with a quickly blurted out, “in the name of Jesus, Amen.”
But then I began to receive a revelation of our Father’s love as I began to read my Bible with purpose.
I’m going to ad-lib a bit to try to explain what took place in my heart.
I had just finished having another “conversation” with God where He couldn’t
get a word in edgewise but right after the customary “sign off” I was surprised
to hear a soft voice inside me ask, “What did you just say Brenda?”
“Huh? Oh, I was just telling you that I was sorry for … wow, I like it when you say my name, that’s cool … anyway I was just saying that I was very sorry for not putting my cart up at Walmart.”
“No, I mean that other thing you said.”
“Uhh, Oh about how I apologize for falling asleep again reading the Bible and
…”
“No. What’s the very last thing you said to Me.”
“You mean, “in the name of Jesus?”
Then Holy Spirit brought a scripture to my remembrance, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; It is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.” Eph. 2:9
That is when I quit coming before our Heavenly Father with my arms folded across my heart to protect it.
It has occurred to me that when I talk about God as a loving Father in this column
there are people who did not have a good Father, or even a Father figure at all. So it can be hard to relate to even a human Dad who loved and supported you.
Much less a Heavenly Father who is always faithful and keeps ALL of His promises.
A Father who is never angry with you.
A Dad who is always willing to answer your prayers according to His word.
Who is patient with you and kind towards you.
He always has time for you.
A Father who is never too busy with more important things in fact His thoughts are always about you and He will never leave you or abandon you.
How about a Dad who is rich in mercy and grace.
Who has supplied all of your needs according to His loving kindness.
A Dad who didn’t just hang the moon, He created it. And the sun and the stars,
the heavens and the earth.
And how about a Father who will never remind you of your faults and failures.
Who’s very nature IS love. God is love.
Because if I can trust Him with my salvation through
Christ Jesus then everything else for Him should be a piece of cake.
Now I can come “boldly before the throne of grace” and greet Him with love and respect and arms wide open because of what Jesus did for me.
(Under the new Covenant relationship with God is no longer based on what we must do, rather what Jesus already did for us.)
And because I love Him, I will not use grace as a license to sin, His love frees me from it.
But still … no matter how badly I mess up, or fail in some area, or how stupid I feel over something I have said
or done. God is not shocked or fallen off of His throne!!
God does not love us for who we are, but in spite of who we are.
The truth is ….
For God so loved “Obama”
For God so loved “Trump”
For God so loved “Mother Teresa”
For God so loved “Hillary”
For God so loved “Princess Diana”
For God so loved, “Hitler”
For God so loved “your next door neighbor who trashes up their yard.”
For God so loved “your boss.”
For God so loved “your son-n-law.”
For God so loved, “your mother in-law.”
For God so loved, “the drunk driver who killed your wife and child.”
For God so loved, “the Pope.”
For God so loved, “your co-worker.”
For God so loved, “your ex-wife.”
For God so loved, “your ex-husband.”
For God so loved, “the child molester.”
For God so loved, “the gang members down the street.”
For God so loved, “the homeless man”
For God so loved, “the rich man”
For God so loved, “your father and mother”
For God so loved, “the human seed of life growing in a mother’s womb”
For God so loved, the world
For God so loved, ” ….. you.”
,,,,, that He gave His only begotten Son that WHO SO EVER believes in Him shall
not perish but have everlasting life.
Romans 3:23 says “That ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” And sadly, not all people will choose to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior and they will spend eternity separated from Him in torment.)
You know, as it turned out, with my Dad (and Heavenly Father) all I had to do
to gain their attention …. was be me.
And all I had to do to be reconciled to God and become His child was to humble myself, admit that I needed His salvation and call on Jesus. At that moment I believed in my heart in the Lord Jesus Christ, and put faith in Him that He is the Son of God, that He died for my sins and that He rose from the dead- and at that moment of revelation, a miraculous re-birth occurred in my spirit and I confessed with my mouth Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
And this was only the beginning of a beautiful relationship between God the
Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. All three separate and all three
One … now living on the inside of me.
(John 3:16; Hosea 11:12; 1 Cor. 1:9; Eph. 1:7; 2:4, 4:3; Psalms
73:23-24,103,139:17; 2 Cor. 1:20; Gal. 5:22; Heb. 13:5; Phil. 4:19; 1 John 4:8)
Readers: I would like to share a teaching message that really touched my heart years ago and brought me so much closer to the Lord – The True Nature of God, awmi.net. You can listen or download the teaching for free.
Contact Brenda Groves at: bkgroves1996@yahoo.com
