Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. Psalm 103:13 (NASB)
A few weeks ago I asked folks on Facebook and through email to answer these two questions:
What is one character trait you like about your father?
What is one character trait you don't like about your father?
I received quite a few answers! After reviewing the answers, I realized a couple of things. 1) Most of us could/would provide an answer for each question. 2) While we were being honest about our father's character traits, in most cases I could tell that not liking a character trait didn't mean that we didn't love our fathers, it meant we could see things we didn't like and loved them anyway.
This made me wonder about our relationship with God. Many people blame God for things and think he doesn't love them because things don't work out the way they want. We want the good from God but not necessarily the bad. Why is that?
I began to think about our relationships with people. If someone we know well, we've shared life with, experienced ups and downs and loved each other through it all does something to hurt us, we are more likely to forgive or overlook the offense. We are more likely to do that because there are memories we've shared, things we've walked through, we know the person really well and we know their heart.
I think it's the same with God. If we don't have a relationship with him, if we haven't walked with him and shared experiences with him, we haven't been able to learn to trust him. Trust is built through experiences and time. So let me ask you,
What is one character trait you like about God?
What is one character trait you don't like about God?
I'll tell you my answer. I love how intimate he is. He talks to us about what is important to us so that we can be in a relationship with him. And the one thing I don't like? I don't like it when he is growing me and he asks me to wait to see what the plan is.
Are you having a hard time answering those questions? That's OK. God wants you to know him so well that the answers will rattle off your tongue. He wants you to trust him so deeply that even when things go wrong you are OK because you know he's got this. He is taking care of it even if you don't know the plan.
It's never too late to build a relationship with your Heavenly Father. Never. Start by having a conversation with him. He's listening.....