A Very Good Father (9)

“Dad?  Can I have a snack?”

“Sure.  Would you like an apple or a banana?”

Or…

“Dad?  Can I have a snack?”

“Not now, honey.  Dinner is nearly done.”

Have you ever had this conversation before?  I’m sure all parents can relate.  If you’re not a parent, though, there’s still probably a good chance you were a kid once and asked a parent this question.  As a kid, you didn’t care about anything more than getting your hands on food.  After a long day of school or coming in after hard play outside, there was nothing better than getting your hands on some goodies.  And the thing I hated the most was not knowing if my request would compete with dinner just around the corner.

How many times did I become mad and angry though when I didn’t get what I wanted?  Honestly, I can’t really count them.  I know I wasn’t that ornery as a child, but I sure knew how to be stubborn.  Knew?  Okay, okay.  But I know the snack question is trivial compared to the other requests I made to my parents later in my teenage years. And, still, my response to them wasn’t always the best when I didn’t get my way.  I’m sure you can remember a few times too when a parent didn’t give you or let you have what you wanted.  It was surely frustrating.  How do they know what’s best for me?  And then we would say, Oh they are so old fashioned!  They just don’t understand.

Do you ever feel that way with the Father, when He doesn’t give you what you want, you pounce out of the room or yell at Him while you do it?  Furthermore, do you take it further? Oh, I 'know' He’s out to get me.  He doesn’t really care for me or love me.  If He did, He would give me what I wanted.  Are you sure about that?  I know as much as I wanted to say those things to my parents at times, and didn’t thankfully, now being a parent I have a better idea of the Love the Father has for us.  He is my Heavenly parent, my biggest advocate and cheerleader, and the first to look out for me, from the bad and from the bad that I falsely perceive as good for me.

If you’re a parent and your child asks for food, would you gladly give him or her a stone or a snake instead?  For we know in our human nature we are experts at being deceitful, evil.  And yet He who is perfect and provides all things, how can we honestly believe He’s out to get us?  I am asking this question of myself first and foremost.

The Father will surely punish me when necessary.  He is a good Father.  The Father will also lavish upon me great gifts, gifts that will last for an eternity.  He is a good Father.  The more I trust Him and revel in His Love, the more I get to know Him and understand He truly cares and looks out for me.  For every good and perfect gift is from above, from the one who does not change like the shifting shadows (James 1:17); He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrew 13:8).  I… can…trust…Him.

   ⁷ “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ¹² So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 7:7-12

9 days!