[Thursday's Devotional] - Being sons and daughters

In the last two years my relationship with God has changed dramatically, because I am now seeing The Father through a father’s eyes.   But not only that, being a father, I am seeing myself as a son in a new way as well.

 

I absolutely adore my son, and now my new daughter.  I love them in a way I never knew before I had kids - but my son has now reached the age where he adores others.  I have been blessed that as a father he usually adores me back.  When I walk in the door he is as excited to see me as I am to see him.  When he wakes in the morning he smiles right back at me as I walk in the room.  When he has a nightmare, there is as much relief in his eyes seeing me as he snaps out of it as there is in mine.  While his love may be steadfast his adoration is not always as true. As is true of all children he is growing and maturing, and while it brings me so much joy watching him grow, it has not been an entirely pain-free experience.

 

Over the last few months, as he has grown in confidence and experiences, he sometimes takes to someone new, it may not be an incredibly deep connection, it may not even last very long but boy is he taken by them in the moment and I have felt the twang of one way affection. This is not a criticism of my son in any way, as a father I have to let him grow, to be his own person and have his own experiences for he is not simply created for me, however it caused me to think of myself as a son and the father God I was created for.

 

The reason I struggle to be left behind by my son is because I love him, sometimes jealously, and I want the best for him.  I care for him, I love him as I was built to love him, as my father loves me.  Then it hit me, “Wait, is this how you feel about me?”.  It was a dimension of God’s jealous love I had never grasped. I mean from my early Christian years I understood that God was hurt when I ran from him right into the arms of sin, he loves me and hates sin, and I know he loves relationship with me but until I became a father I never got how he loves me. In fact I didn’t get it to the point that I was able to disregard him without realising I was doing it.

 

Life is exciting and full of distractions, full of other relationships, full of experiences, but unlike my son I was created first and foremost for relationship with my father, and yet I sometimes leave him on the shelf to feel the twang of one way affection.  I am a father, but I am also a son to the most loving father I could ever wish or ask for, who makes my love for my own son seem like a leaf in the wind, and through being a loving father I hope to learn to be a more loving son.

 

Tim Holt