2 Lessons from Parenthood

I have been convinced for some time now that parenthood actually holds many lessons for us about God's love. Would like to share two lessons I have learnt from parenthood...

1. When my 1st son was still a baby, I found myself fussing over him when he had every little problem - be it sleep, sickness or cuts/bruises. I also noticed the lengths we go through to prevent him from falling ill or getting hurt in anyway - physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. One only has to see the pain a bully causes to the parent of the bullied kid to see evidence of this. In this context, I was better able to appreciate God's love for me, that He allowed His only Son to step down from heaven into earth to save us. Instead of shielding His Son from the ways of the world, He sent His Son to be a sacrifice for us - to be misunderstood, humiliated, eventually physically abused and killed at our hands, just to save us! How much pain it must have caused our God to witness the persecution and torture of His Son, how much discipline it must have taken on His and His Son's behalf to not call it to an end, but to just let the abuse run its course, just so that the price for our sin may be paid in full! In fact, Jesus himself said this when he was arrested "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" (Matthew 26:53-54). Our God was not a powerless God even when Jesus was suffering at the hands of man. He is a powerful God who has the strength of character, discipline, and love to allow His Son to suffer at the hands of man, only because He wants us to be saved and reconciled to Him.
   Can you turn from such a God and make His sacrifice meaningless?
   
   
2. The second episode is one that I wrote back in 2003 when my 1st son was only three. Here it is verbatim from the email I sent to my friends...
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Something to share in case it is applicable in your walk with God... Truly, our kids teach us so much about God... A few days ago, I was out for a walk with my boy on his bike in the evening, when we found a tennis ball in the bushes. It was old and dirty, but his excitement was obvious. Our 1st reaction was to celebrate finding it, and put it in his bag on the bike. However, I noticed that there were some people playing tennis upstairs and decided to take the opportunity to teach him about returning stuff we find. (At 3 yrs old, I have not had the chance to teach him that object lesson yet.) So we go up to the tennis court and sure enough it was one of their lost balls. My 3 year old was visibly sad to haveto give up the ball, but he ran up to the folks and gave them the ballanyway. Afterward, he asked me why we have to return it, and I had a great chance to explain to him how to be a blessing to others and return stuff we find. The thing is, when my little boy ran up to the folks to return the dirty old tennis ball, with the sad look on his little face to have to let it go, I felt at that moment that I could give him a BIG hug and buy him all the tennis balls in the world - I did give him a big hug, and later when we got home, I couldn't resist opening up a whole new tube of tennis balls for him (3 new tennis balls)! That was when it dawned on me that if I feel so good about my son doing that,God must feel a similar way when we do the right thing.
   
   Do you have a dirty old tennis ball in your life that God wants you to give up? It may be hard to do, but the joy it gives our Father is tangible and very real, and probably a lot stronger than whatever I felt with my son. Who knows? You just might get 3 new tennis balls in return!
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~