A Father's Child

Sometimes my little guy wants something. Usually it involves wanting to play, to eat, or to be changed. If none of those helps, he needs a nap. If it is not one of those four things, it means I am out of ideas and I have to use my special emergency word- “Honey?”

As you can see, it is a dire circumstance because his begging face is irresistible. Also it immediately precedes crying, which is just painful. So when Isaiah wants something, if it is reasonable, I give it to him. If it is unreasonable (like not wanting to go to bed), I steel myself to ignore his pitiful cries for freedom.

This is the simple metaphor used by Christ in Matthew 7 to encourage us to make requests of the Father. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find…or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?...If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

I tend to be comfortable with conflict and challenges- much more comfortable with those things, in fact, than I am with times of peace. Right now my little family is in a time of great peace, and I struggle with restlessness. I want to move on to new battles and challenges, to see lives changed and the Word proclaimed.

On one hand, I need to learn trust and patience. My God is a father more faithful and loving than I could ever be to my own adorable son, how then can I fault the situation he has given us? Each day I am learning to find joy in peace and quiet, when much is at rest. God has placed us here, and I would be ungrateful to overlook the blessings of this time.

At the same time, Christ encourages us to make use of our son ship. As a child of the King, I am to ask for good things with passion and confidence, knowing that God uses my pleading as part of his plan to open new directions and insights. It is as though by crying out, I take a snapshot of a moment in time, so that later I can look back at that snapshot and see how much I have changed; or, more accurately, God has changed me.

So today I work to practice these things; trust and gratefulness for all that God gives, but also desperate pleading for new opportunities to proclaim His gospel to the world. These are the tasks he gives me as a child in my Father’s house. Hopefully without the pouty face.