What A Great Dad

Know something? "Our Father, who art in heaven" is a really good dad.

In my younger years, when I was forming my basic set of beliefs about myself and life, people around me either gave in to my strong desires, or ignored/made light of them. By the time I was a teenager, I think I had learned to hide pretty well; I’m not even sure I knew, half the time, what I desired.

As I said, though, God is a great dad.

What brought this to mind at the moment is that I’ve recently made the decision to not have children. You may think of this what you will, but the simple truth is that I’m pushing thirty-nine years on this planet, and, with the exception of about one month when I passionately wanted to be normal (you know, married, with kids, and a husband who brought home a paycheck; a garden, cooking, cleaning, laundry …) I’ve never wanted to have children. I’ve met people who do: my young sister-in-law wants more children; my niece wants children; my invaluable cleaning lady, who has four, said she’d always wanted children. Not me.

As I was working through the process of making this decision, I realized that the Lord has been so good to me. He’s let me be a partner with Him. We make decisions together. Mind you, I know who is the boss, here, but He rarely comes across as the boss with me. We talk together. We work together. He really cares about what I want, and He really wants me to have what is best for me.

I do not presently have everything I’ve ever wanted in life, but I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve got a huge percentage of it. When I was little, oh, how I longed for what I heard on those records, and what I saw on the record covers. To sing! Oh, my! Into a microphone! In a studio! On a stage! And to write songs? How can they do that? Wouldn’t that be awesome?! And when I first read a novel that made me feel what the characters were experiencing, I thought, would there be anything more wonderful than to be able to write something that makes people feel? I’ve been designing houses (that no one wanted/ was able to build) for twenty years. I drove my mother crazy by keeping track of the expenses of raising poultry, and the income it produced, and nagging her to raise her prices, because she wasn’t making money. Economics was my favorite subject, when I was fifteen. More than twenty years later, it’s still one of my favorite subjects.

What a wonderful dad, to work with me for all those years. To take the desires that were so dear to my heart, and make this adjustment and that adjustment, until they could grow and produce good fruit. The adjustments often hurt, and the waiting is painful, but who wouldn’t love this Father—if they knew Him?

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