My Kids’ Dad
My husband Matt is such a good dad to our kids. He loves each of them so much! One of his favorite things to do is to take them on dates and buy them a toy. As much as I try to keep us on budget and not spoil the kids too much… there is Daddy, always ready to shower them with more love, grace, and gifts.
I see this all the time with my kids’ dad. So why is it so hard for me to see my heavenly Dad this way? So many times I don’t see God anything like this. I don’t see God as my doting Father wanting to love on me, spend time with me, and shower me with gifts. Instead, I see Him more as a disapproving Dad, a Dad that focuses on all my sins, failures, and short-comings. I see the disciplinarian Dad, taking me through another trial to make me better, change me, grow me, and rub the rough edges off.
My Heavenly Dad
But God is so much more than just a strict disciplinarian Father. He is better at being a Dad than any earthly dad could ever be! How do I know this? His Word says so.
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
Sometimes I wonder if God looks down at me when I’m feeling so discouraged and unworthy of God’s love and asks me,” What kind of Dad do you think you have?”
God’s Plan for My Life
Just as Matt can see and understand what our kids need more than they can, so my Heavenly Father knows what I need more than I do. He knows that the thing I have been so afraid to do is what is going to radically change me. He knows that the prayer request I have been praying for for several years is not going to be answered the way I think it is, but His answer and plan is going to be so much better.
His plan for me involves waiting right now because the rest of the story hasn’t played out yet. If He brought it to pass now, I would only see half of the blessing He has prepared.
God’s Plan for Your Life
I don’t know where you are at in life right now. Maybe you are waiting for a relationship, and it just won’t come. Maybe you are in financial need and no matter how much you pray and work hard, you just can’t get ahead. Perhaps it’s a health problem, a relationship difficulty, a job need that seems so out of reach, maybe it’s loneliness or failure. Maybe you have convinced yourself for so long, like I have, that you just don’t deserve God’s help and love, that you are unworthy, lazy, unlovely, incapable. And the whole time, your Heavenly Father is looking down on you and asking…
What kind of Dad do you think you have? I see the full picture, and it is more beautiful than you could ever imagine! Trust Me. Believe in Me. Joy in Me. For I am your Father, and I love you more than you will ever understand this side of Heaven .
Encouragement for a Weary Heart
Sometimes I just need to be reminded of a few of my favorite verses.
The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Jeremiah 31:3
Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33:3
As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him. Psalm 18:30
So I ask you in the midst of life’s pressures and struggles, what kind of Dad do you think you have?
Photo credit: Frank Mckenna
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