Fatherhood

When you were born, did you run around the hospital shouting, "I've been born!  I've been born!"?  No.  Your father did that.  You spent the next decade completely dependant on both your Father AND your Mother. 

As is our relationship with God.  This week the subject is God in the Fatherly aspect of things.  I know I said I loved discussing apologetics and the character/nature of God, but I know I'm going to love this week's discussion.  This is what God is first and foremost above all other things: a perfectly loving father.  I can't really collect my thoughts at the moment, but what I remember is the speaker this week telling story upon story(he's a missionary in his sixties) about miracles he has witnessed and lives he has seen healed. 

Take an 11 year old in a run-down hospital in Mozambique, for example.  This 11 year old's entire village was slaughtered by guerilla soldiers wielding machetes, and as he was attempting to run away he was shot in the shoulder and left for dead.  He had been in the hospital for two months without any sign of improvement in the wound.  In fact, it was simply getting worse.  Anytime someone came close to him, he would curl up in a corner and hiss and growl like a wild animal. 

Our speaker sat down on the bed and simply held out his hand to the child for about 20 minutes.  Eventually the kid eased over and took his hand.  Our speaker(I can't remember his name) said he couldn't keep himself from crying, and he just prayed for the kid and for his wound.  He came back to visit the child two weeks later and the wound on his shoulder was almost completely healed. 

Because they spoke completely different languages, neither of them could communicate, and so the child simply gave our speaker a massive hug and kept laughing and smiling.  Several months later, the child was in an orphanage, and our speaker went to visit him there.  The instant the child saw him, he ran downstairs and hugged his leg, laughing.

This child is now a grown man who works at YWAM schools worldwide.

Our speaker went on to tell a ton of stories like this, and stories about his own children and about fatherly love.  It was incredibly moving and awesome and beautiful.  As cheesy as it sounds, I cannot wait to have children of my own. 

He described our relationship with God as being a fatherly one first and foremost.  Look past all the formalities of church, look past all the excitement of a missions project, and look at the intimacy God desires from people. 

People get so caught up in trying to impress God and do things that will make Him think, "Wow, that's awesome!".  But what we forget is that us making things is just presenting the things He already gave us in a slightly different form.  It's like a child making a drawing for their parents.  Children will never be able to draw well enough to impress their parents, but the act of love will fill the parents with so much joy that the skill behind the creation doesn't matter.  It's about the heart.

That's where my train of thought stops.  See you all tomorrow.