I love watching the relationship my daughter has with her Daddy. She idolizes him, wants to be like him, and longs to spend time with him. It occurred to me one day as I listened to her talk about him, that God is using her to show me the perfect example of how I am to love and adore Him, the One who is my Abba Father.
Every morning when my daughter wakes up, her first thought is “Is Daddy here?”. Many mornings, he has already gone to work for the day and there is such great disappointment that she did not get to say good-bye. But, on the mornings he is here, she barrels down the hall with such speed that you'd think her room was on fire! She just bursts forth with the thought of seeing her beloved Dad. She loves making breakfast with him, a tradition that I hope will last them well into her teenage years. After many mornings of hearing her feet rapidly pattering down the hallway, I finally realized that this is how I am to greet my precious Heavenly Father. I should be so excited to see Him in the mornings, that I ought to literally jump out of bed at the thought of meeting with Him! Sadly, this is rarely how I approach my time with Him. Often, I am dragging myself out from under the comfort of the covers, already grumpy that my daughter has woken me up. I stumble into the kitchen, slamming dishes around, trying to scrounge up some breakfast. After getting onto my daughter one more time for being so LOUD in the mornings, I finally sit down to eat. It is only then that I open the Word and try to find a connection to my God. I wonder what my day would be like, though, if I did run to Him the way my daughter runs to greet her father. He is always there, waiting for me to meet with Him.
My daughter not only loves to spend time with her Dad, she also wants to be JUST like him. We get a big kick out of some of the things she will say and do to emulate him. In her mind, he is the perfect man – her prince! If Daddy likes basketball and golf, well she is going to do her best to like those things, too. The other day, they were eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant, when she forgot to tell the waiter that she did not want beans with her meal. She freaked out a little bit that the beans were there on her plate and were leaking over into her rice! She had decided a while back that she did not like refried beans. We thought it was just her picky taste buds, but she said something to my husband that made us think differently. She told him that since he didn't eat those beans, then she didn't want to either because she wanted to be just like him. Again, God reminded me that this is how I ought to think about His ways. My utmost desire should be to look like Him, act like Him, love what He loves, and hate what He hates. If He doesn't like something in my life, I shouldn't even want it on my “plate”, for fear that it might leak into everything else on the plate, thereby ruining the meal.
I am encouraged by the fact that even though I don't always give Him my best, my Father is always waiting for me to come running to Him. He is thrilled to see me, though my hair may be in a funk, I'm wearing the same pajamas I've worn three nights in a row, and I still have sleep in my eyes! And I'm thankful that He is the Prince I can always count on to save the day. He will never steer me wrong, so I can trust Him and walk faithfully in His ways. I pray one day, I will finally treat Him as He deserves to be treated so that I can show my daughter how to love Him as she loves her Daddy.
Prayer: Abba Father, I come running to meet with You today. Thank You for Your never-ending desire to fellowship with me. I want to be just like You. Please help me to love the things You love. Forgive me when I allow things to creep into my life that shouldn't be there. May my life be a perfect reflection of You. Amen.
Further Reading: Romans 8:29, Ephesians 4:22-24, Psalm 5:3, Isaiah 50:4, Mark 1:35
****You may remember that last year, I attended the She Speaks Conference. God used this conference in so many ways and I am still trying to process it all. I would love to have the opportunity to go again this year because I truly believe in the mission of this organization. The She Speaks Conference is about women connecting the hearts of women to the heart of God. I hope you know from my blog that this is my desire as well. Ann Voskamp is sponsoring a scholarship contest for a chance to go to the conference this year. This is my entry for that contest. Please click on over to her blog to find out more details.
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