A Father's Heart

When I was probably about 8 years old, I remember getting my favorite Christmas present. My dad surprised me with it around September, because he was never very good at holding out on a secret. I came home from school to find a beanie baby sitting on my bed with a note. As I read the note, I began a scavenger hunt around my house, each point marked with a different beanie baby, (Lord knows I had about 1,000 of those stupid things that are now packed in my attic in three huge tubs) and a note to give the clue to find the next. After about six beanie baby notes, I came upon the seventh, which was a stuffed frog that was so cleverly hidden in my bathtub. The note told me to go outside, around the corner of the house by where our pool pump house was. At this point, I just assumed I would be getting yet another beanie baby, so I hurried outside SO excited to see what the next animal would be. But, as I rounded the corner, my eyes widened, heart stopped, and there it was—my very own motorized scooter. I’m pretty sure I was more excited to get that scooter than I was at 16 getting my first real car. I was EXSTATIC. I spent the next year at least racing that sucker around the front lawn, down one side of the ditch and ramping up the other, flying around trees, and making my own race course through the grass. I was unstoppable.

To understand why this was so cool to me, you have to first understand that, as a child, I was the world’s biggest tomboy. I spent my playground days racing the boys, and beating them at pull-ups during our PE fitness tests. At recess, I was the pink Power Ranger who ran around with the boys, karate chopping trees that we pretended were the bad guys. The week before my fifth grade play, Peter Pan, I got a black eye because I was pitching while playing baseball with the boys and got the ball hit back into my eye at warp speed. I had to put concealer on my eyes in the play to hide the bruises, so as not to portray Wendy as the girl who was abused by Peter Pan. Bottom line, I was not interested in pretty dresses, fluffy bows, or flirting with the boys. So, when my dad surprised me with my go-ped… it would have been like a normal girl getting surprised with a My Size Barbie coupled with her life-size Barbie dream car. But me? Nope. I had a need for speed that the dream car just couldn’t provide. Fast-forward to now, 15 years later. My sweet daddy still gives me great stuff, but I’m pretty sure nothing will ever quite compare to that scooter.
Now to my point. Today I was reading in Luke, and something stuck with me:

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 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 the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” – Luke 11:9-13

This made me think about my own father, and how he would have given his left arm to make sure that I was taken care of, happy, and provided for. I never went hungry growing up, and I never had to worry about not having clothes to wear. On top of just providing the necessities, my dad also provided me with things “just because,” like my scooter. I didn’t do anything to earn that, he just wanted to see me smiling and having fun! If I asked my dad for something, he inevitably was going to give it to me, and probably a little more. Why? It’s simple. Because I was his little girl, and he wanted the best things for my life.

These verses say even bigger things about Jesus-that we should be open and honest with him about what we need, from the smallest desires of our heart to our biggest practical needs. Who has a desire for something powerful to happen in his heart? He should ask God. Who has a need? Ask God. The fact that, so often, as people who follow Jesus, our prayer lives do not mirror our hearts to know Christ is really sad. I am guilty of this too. I know how to get to know him, but I forget sometimes the importance of talking to him. When I say that out loud it sounds really stupid haha.

What is beautiful about Him is that he is not my dad. He is not anyone’s earthly dad. See, everyone’s earthly dads are human, evil in their very core apart from Christ. As sinners, we are all lost without grace. It brings a whole new worth to these verses when you remember that even a human, innately evil father desires to give the best to his children when they ask him for it. How much more can a perfect father give?

I think often, when I am asked to trust God, I find it difficult because I have a skewed mentality of who he is. Tozer put it this way:

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. ... Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.”

I feel like if I could really grasp that not only does God love me, but that he desires ONLY GOOD for my life, it would be easier to trust him in moments where I feel like he is emptying the goodness from my life. To me, it might feel like he is stripping everything I know and love out of my life, when in reality, he is clearing room for more of Himself-knowing that HE is the only thing that can bring me true happiness. He takes situations that look like disasters to us, and orchestrates something beautiful that we never saw coming.

And we, being stupid, don’t realize just how many of our prayers God answers, because we forget what we pray for almost as soon as it leaves our lips. Matt Chandler said it perfectly, “We are like children on Christmas morning that get tons of presents, and then pout because we didn’t get the pony.” We gripe about the ONE unanswered prayer and forget the hundreds that were answered. Or, we attribute his goodness to the things around us that are visible. We praise the gifts, the creation, the technology, the medicine- and we forget to praise the One who created it all. Why give glory to the table, when you can get to know the carpenter? And if we truly learn to trust him, not only will he surprise us with what he loves to give to his children, but I think he will also keep us from a lot of pain.

Back to my scooter story for a minute…
Before dad would let me ride the scooter, he told me the conditions. He pulled out a shiny helmet and a set of elbow and knee pads, and informed me that I needed to wear them to protect myself when I rode. I rolled my eyes, being that I was eight and knew everything, and put them on begrudgingly. However, after riding the scooter around like Evel Knievel for about two weeks, it started getting annoying to have to put on all of my protective gear. I figured, since I had a lot of experience, I was practically a pro. I didn’t need all that gear, right? I had never wrecked before, why worry about the hassle? DAY ONE of no protective gear happened, and I felt indestructible. That is, until I decided to ramp off the driveway and onto the neighbors’ driveway which was about a two feet drop from ours. In that one extremely stupid moment, I flew through the air- midway through realizing that I was NOT going to land well. My tires hit hard on the pavement, and I wiped out bigtime, sliding down my neighbors’ driveway as my scooter flew into the grass. My first reaction was to see if my dad was looking, and then… the pain came. I looked down and realized my elbow was bleeding, and, being the wimp that I am, I broke out into hysteria. (Excuse me, but WHY did I have to scrape my ELBOW of all things? I mean, could I not have scraped something that wouldn’t have been protected had I worn the gear my dad had bought for me? Geez)

I ran into the house, and my dad took me in his arms. He sat me up on the kitchen counter and started pouring alcohol on my open wound (payback). I of course screamed bloody murder as he told me that it would only hurt for a minute and would clean all the germs out of my cut. I thought at first he was only doing it to torture me, but since he was right about the elbow pads I decided to trust him. Turns out dad isn’t such a dummy after all.

Now, you would think I would have learned after that experience to listen to warnings. You would assume that I would look down at the disgusting scar on my right elbow and think twice the next time I wanted to do things my own way. Buuuuuuut, of course, I am the most stubborn human being known to mankind, and 15 years later, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to “see for myself” at my own expense. So many times I thought I knew better than God. I thought I was indestructible. I ignored his voice when he told me to run away, to protect my heart, or to trust that what looked hopeless was really the best way. Instead, I try to trick him into believing that my way would actually be better. Haha, I’m an idiot. It’s laughable.

Yet, at the end of the day, I’m an idiot with a God who, thankfully, is nothing like me. Luckily, I don’t have to be perfect for my Father to delight in me. All I have to do is ask, seek, and knock, and trust that God does not desire my perfection- but instead he desires endless, reckless pursuit. Pursuit that says to Him, “I cannot rest until I know the depths of exactly who you are.” Pursuit that is honest about my fears, my desires, my lack of control, the ugliness in my heart, and my annoying secret sins that, LET’S BE HONEST, are not secret to him anyways. That’s a little freaky to think about, but honestly, extremely freeing. Stop hiding from God. Share with him your fears. Share your insecurities. There is no better person to tell these things to than the God who holds every key to victory over fears, insecurities, sin, and death. Share them with the God who delights in giving good gifts to his children. Trust that he wants only the best and most wonderful things for your life. Those wonderful things may lead you away from something you think is vital to your happiness, but they will never lead you anywhere but closer to the God who IS HIMSELF happiness. And when your life is lead by a God like him, and your decisions are based on his voice and guidance, you will find something worth far more than yourself. Happy searching!