He fathers us, right? Yes. We are His children. Yes.
I have heard so many people over my life complain about what they perceive as this nazi god, He's so mean, all you ever hear from Him is NO no no no no. Don't do this, don't do that!
WELL, to all those people, (who are not reading this, but oh well), maybe that's all you are hearing because you are being a little disobedient brat. Guess what? If you do what He says, there is no need for Him to be drilling law at you. If you make it your business and/or perogative to do whatever the heck you want, yes, what's He left with to say, but no, don't do that. stop it, no no , stop it, no... Because He loves us, and being a good Parent, He has to inform us of what will be harmful to us and try to enforce it, to carry out consequences.
Ok, there's no hiding this is coming from a personal experience, so I'll cut to the chase. Up until the last month, Anna has been virtually effortless to parent. Seriously. I have gotten off SOOO easy. She obeyed everything at first suggestion and often didn't even have to be told stuff. I almost felt guilty when talking to other friends and hearing their struggles with their kids. She would eat whatever she was given, play with whatever you suggested, indefinitely, stop instantly if she learned something was not favourable to us. Now she is pushing, which I suppose is normal. They go in phases. But I realized, especially in the last couple days, how I didn't even feel like a parent that much to her. She was just my tiny little friend. We could hang out and there was never any tension cause she was perfectly agreeable and obedient. These last days, I am feeling like the big meany, the nazi, the nay-sayer. Because she refuses to do what she is told, and is not being compliant, that puts me in the position of being the stern enforcer. I never had to do that yet. She didn't make me. Now she is. I don't enjoy judgment and discipline, I far preferred being her chum, but I have to do it, if she is rebellious. When she is being obedient, we can just carry on happily like a couple buddies, and she might have never seen me even look stern.
And I said to myself, aaaahhhh.... we do that to God.
Maybe your own behaviour and heart attitude are determining/affecting how you see God. Your relationship could be different, better; heck, like a couple buddies.
I believe that with my whole heart.
2 comments:
So I really need to get to bed, but your blog invoked a lot of thought. Now I can either comment or sit in bed thinking of comments. I opt for the first option.
First of all, I think our perception of God is greatly influenced by our parents, esp. our father. It's much easier to think of God as a buddy if your dad was your buddy growing up.
I whole heartedly agree with your statement that our behavior and heart attitudes affect how we see God. I also agree that we can carry along happily with God when we're in obedience. But I also think there is a danger in seeing God as a buddy that says that he's like us. It can be subtle. It's the kind of thing that excuses our particular struggle. It's the kind of thing that says adultry is wrong but premarital sex isn't. Or says our struggle with depression is 'just the way God made me'. We might be in the midst of serious sin and think that we're carrying along with God happily because we don't feel any of the emotions of guilt or regret or conviction. We get so deceived by sin we don't even recognize our rebellion because we're in such denial of the true condition of our heart. It's the paradigm of 'dark but lovely'. We are truely and utterly loved, but utterly dead in our sin.
If I understand you correctly, I think you're assuming that parents have goodwill towards their children. I have never experienced anything otherwise from my folks. But some have been abused, in all sorts of horrible ways, and so it's understandably hard to picture God as being goodwilled towards them. The buddy thing is unfathomable to them.
I feel like I'm understanding that you discipline the one you love. I know you love Anna to pieces, way too much to let her be a spoiled brat. Lucy's crying gotta go..
It's quite a remarkable thing to start to understand what it means to be a child of the Father by being a parent or a grandparent oneself. I've been getting firsthand experience of that through my landlord's weekly visits with his grandson and the inevitable reflection on the visit afterward. And the heart attitudes comment is one that I'll have to devote a lot of thought to.
Post a Comment