04/16/2018
How do you behave at home? I am not talking simply about your physical home on earth, but your spiritual home in heaven. We concentrate a great deal on what a good Father God is, but what kind of daughter or son are you? Do you love Him with all your heart? Do you serve Him and do His will? Do you honor Him, or do you expect Him to honor your prayers and requests without reciprocation? Do you feel that He is obligated to provide all your desires while you do nothing? Are you a spoiled child?
“Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”Matthew 7:9-11 ESV
I love the parables which Jesus uses to teach us, and this one is called “Ask, and it will be Given”, or sometimes we refer to it as “The Parable of the Good Father.” It speaks of our ability to parent as compared to God’s, and our everyday provision for our kids as compared to God’s desire to provide for us as His children. The interesting thing about parables is the way in which they tell a story much larger than the words that are expressed, and they do this by drawing on our own habits, customs, and worldly knowledge to take us much further, and broaden the story way beyond what is actually described. In this case we know what we feel as parents, but we also remember what it is to be a child, and the expectations of both.
There is a classic Christmas movie that is played almost non-stop during the month of December; it is called “The Christmas Story” and is about a boy who wants a BB Gun for Christmas, but who is told over and over again that he won’t get one because he might “shoot your eye out.” However, in the end, after he thinks he has received all his presents, and is disappointed in not having received that one gift he truly wanted, the gun, and while he is consoling himself in the fact that perhaps he will get one next year, his father, with a great deal of satisfaction and excitement, tells him to go look behind the desk. There, hidden from view is one last Christmas present... a BB Gun. There was excitement on the part of the Son, but there was also pleasure and excitement on the part of the father. Of course, this isn’t a parable, and it takes almost two hours to build the surrounding story that leads us to that moment, but at its climax we see the power of parental giving, and a child’s receiving.
Unlike this movie, Jesus uses our own experiences with giving and receiving gifts, and provisions as parents, to allow us to relive our own lives, and then neatly inserts His lesson regarding our Heavenly Father into it. We suddenly understand a complex idea without His having to concoct an elaborate story around it. Our own lives have become the story, and the father in the parable suddenly has become ourselves... in an instant, we are the main character, and more than that... understand God better as a result. We see His giving of gifts as a child, and as a father... instantly.
In this parable about an earthly and Heavenly Father, we also see ourselves as children, and we know how good children should behave if they want to receive the gifts they desire. We realize that there are times when fathers give things their children really don’t deserve, there are others in which we give dangerous gifts that will stretch our children, and there are times when we give rewards, but we also know that most of our giving is predicated on the child’s good behavior, and deservedness. All of these things, and more, flash through our minds like a lightning bolt, and we grasp them and fold them into our understanding in a moment without conscious thought.
So, in that split second of epiphany we know what is expected of us as God’s children, and we evaluate how we are living up to those expectations... and it came about without saying... a byproduct of a different story, and yet equally the focus of it. We intuitively realized how to give, receive, appreciate, offer thanks, and use the gifts that father’s give... it is the incorporation of our lives experiences, all rolled into one living story. A lifetime told in 62 words.
How do you behave at home? How do you love your Heavenly Father? How much do you honor and serve Him? Are you a good child, or a spoiled one? These are questions that race through our minds as Jesus is speaking, and yet he never asked them. How is it that He knows us do well?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the gifts you provide me, and the trust I have in your love and provision. Father, I also thank you for looking into my heart and seeing me for who I really am, and knowing the gifts that are dangerous for me, but allowing me to have them anyway because they will stretch my relationship with you. I thank you for using such presents to bring me closer to you, and despite their ill effects, you allow me to have them... even though sometimes I hurt myself with them, even though they lead me to disappointment and heartbreak, or I must call out to you for help in them... you keep me. Holy Father, in these times when my desires have been unwise, or ill conceived you have used them to draw me near, and teach me to depend on you all the more. In my prayers you ask me repeatedly if I really want this thing, and I say yes; often time and time again, before you relent and give me my desire... then comes the pain and suffering, but you don’t abandon me to it. In my travail you lift me up, and create good out of my poor choice. Merciful Father, your gifts are always good... even those I ask for unwisely and against your will for me. In as much as I desire to give good gifts to my children, and in as much as I want only good to befall them, I can see that your love for me eclipses mine, and that your gifts are always perfect. Great are you Gracious Father, and greater is your love than that which is in me alone. Help me Lord to ask within your will, and to be s good child, who is obedient to you, and honors you always. Hear my great joys, and tend to me in me sorrow; never let me stray far from you Father. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my Father, and my God.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”James 1:17 ESV
Rich Forbes