5
My Daddy Is Good
I sat in the airport the other day waiting for a connecting flight home. I was tired, but the trip had been a real blessing, and so it was a good tired. The kind that comes from a sense of deep satisfaction.
As I sat there waiting, I found myself watching people once again. It was only moments before a uniformed flight attendant came up with a child in hand. The girl looked to be no more than nine or ten. She had lovely chocolate brown eyes, black hair, and the sweetest smile.
“Sit here,” the attendant instructed. “I’ll come and get you when it’s time for the flight.”
The girl nodded and took the seat beside mine.
“Don’t worry, now,” the attendant said with a smile. “I’ll just be standing right over here. I’ll be able to see you the entire time.”
The girl nodded and began to swing her legs back and forth.
I smiled at the girl as well. I told her my name and broke the rule about talking to strangers. I figured she was safe. I told her I was heading home after being gone almost a week. I told her that I had a little boy her age. She waited politely for me to finish, all the while swinging her legs. She told me her name and then added that she was traveling from Texas to Missouri to see her sister.
I was so compelled by this girl’s ease. She seemed completely content to be traveling alone. Perhaps she had done this numerous times, I thought. Perhaps this was an old routine that she’d grown up with. I decided to ask.
“Do you travel by yourself a lot?”
She shook her head and grinned an infectious grin that warmed my heart. “Nope, this is my first time.”
I was impressed. “Are you afraid?” I asked, thinking that if she was, I could offer her some kind of encouragement or conversation until she was on her way once again. Little did I know that she would be the one to offer encouragement.
“Nope. I’m not afraid. My daddy told me things before I got on the airplane.”
I was intrigued. What things had her father said that so easily put her at rest about this trip? I hated to pry, but I needed to know. I’ve been flying for a good part of my adult life, and I’m still not at ease as much as this child.
“So what did your daddy tell you?” I asked.
She gave a little bouncing momentum to her leg swinging. “He told me I didn’t need to be afraid. He told me everything would be okay.”
I nodded, trying to encourage her confidence, but she needed no encouraging. “He sounds like a very good daddy.”
She nodded in rhythm to the bounce and swing. She was a body in perpetual motion. “He is a good daddy,” she declared. “He loves me.”
She said it with such confidence that I was thinking about her long after the attendant led her away for her next flight.
Her words reminded me of my heavenly Daddy. He too is a good daddy. The best of fathers. And He loves me. I couldn’t help but think of the girl’s confidence in this now distant man. He had told her she didn’t need to be afraid, that everything would be okay.
Joshua 1:9 came to mind: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Our Daddy says we don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be terrified.
Is something scaring you? Are you trembling in fear, uncertain of the future? Maybe the bills are all due next week or even today, and there’s no money in the bank to cover them. Maybe you’ve prayed and prayed for healing, but the tests keep indicating a problem.
Perhaps someone is threatening you—hovering nearby to cause you harm. Maybe someone wants to see you fired . . . evicted . . . divorced . . . dead. You’re afraid to answer the door for fear of who might be on the other side.
“Be strong and courageous . . . do not be terrified.”
Our Daddy is good. He loves us.
Do you believe that? Do you have the faith of a child who upon boarding a plane for a cross-country trip takes the words of her father to heart and has no fear? A child who fairly dances in her seat in anticipation of the journey ahead, even though she is making it alone for the first time?
“Do not be discouraged.”
The problems of this world are temporary. Like dust in the wind—momentarily stirred up and then blown away. Our Father promises us that He will be with us wherever we go. He promises us that we don’t have to make the journey alone.
Our Daddy is good. He loves us. Take it from the heart of a child who knows. Take it to heart and know for yourself. There will always be problems and conflicts. There will always be things that threaten our balance, our hope. But God is good. He’s told us some things before we ever started the journey. He’s given us words of wisdom—measures of advice—love letters in His Holy Word.
That little girl helped me to remember that faith is knowing who you’re dealing with. She knew her daddy. Her nine or ten years of dealing with him gave her confidence in his behavior and credibility. When he told her it would be okay, she knew she could trust the matter to be right. She knew it because she trusted the one who spoke the words.
Do you trust the one who spoke the Word? Can you have the hope in your heavenly Father that this child had in her earthly one?
Listen. Our Daddy is speaking. He’s telling us things . . . things we can take with us . . . things that will help us on our journey.
Are you listening?
Maybe you should take a seat for this one. Grab a copy of the Bible. Cross your legs at the ankle and start swinging them. Now give a little bounce.
Your Daddy loves you . . . and . . . He’s got some things to tell you.
6
Fitting Into the Big Picture
My son is the self-proclaimed, undisputed Lego king of the world. He has loved those pesky building blocks since he was a tiny guy. Now, in case you’ve somehow missed out on those wonders of modern invention, let me tell you—someone was a genius. These colorful plastic building blocks are just what the doctor ordered for occupying young children.
They’ve made these blocks in every color known to man: some basic reds, blues, and whites—my son swears greens are harder and harder to find. Then there are the more spirited pinks for the girls and blacks and grays for your castle warriors and ninja fighters.
Square blocks aren’t the only thing that come in the set. They have arches and long, thin rectangles. They have wheels and little Lego trees. They even have people.
Legos have been a main staple of this family for as long as my son has been old enough to walk and then some. There was even a time when my older daughters were into the building blocks, but that passed, giving way to fashion dolls and accessories. With my son, the Lego relationship goes on and on.
Now, I’ve watched my son build with these blocks. Sometimes he works from a kit with instructions, and sometimes he creates on his own. He has a vast Lego village in his bedroom—no need to go to the theme park, we have our own right here. Erik meticulously lays out the things he needs, working with his medium like a painter works with oils. There’s a reason and a purpose for every piece, every move. He has hundreds of little pieces before him, but better yet, he has a picture in his mind of what it will all become.
And like my son with his toys, God has a picture of what our lives will become. We see hundreds of little pieces, but God already knows what the finished product will be, and it doesn’t matter if He’s working from His own set of instructions or just knows in His mind what He wants to accomplish—He has a plan.
Recall what Jeremiah 29:11 says: “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord.”
Do you see those words? I mean, really see them? Are you listening to what they say?
“I know the plans I have for you.”
God isn’t just winging this. He didn’t just wake up one day and say, “You know, maybe I should putter around with humankind this morning.”
He has a plan.
He
knows that plan.
That plan is for you.
Like my son with his universe of colorful plastic blocks, God has a universe of His own. This universe is His own creation, and we are the pieces that He works with. He looks down upon us, seeing all the possibilities, all the potential.
Erik knows the potential of his blocks. “You see this part over here?” he asks me. “Well, that’s not really stable ground, so I have to put in a better support before I can build on it.”
God knows the potential of His people. “You see this woman over here? Well, she’s really not on stable ground. I’ll have to put in better support before I can build on her.”
My son looks to his creation with love. He has been known to cry when things fall apart or get angry when things won’t work together.
God looks to His creation with love. He sees the homeless people, the abused and wounded children, the neglected and forgotten elderly. Do you suppose He cries when things fall apart for us? Do you suppose when He sees people refusing to work together to build a community, a church, or a home, that He gets angry because things aren’t working together? I think He does. I think, like my son, God desires that His creation come together in perfect order. I think He desires the beauty and loveliness—the perfection of His kind of order.
I think that, like Erik, God sees the potential of a hundred million pieces and reaches out to set things in motion. He builds a foundation, strong and secure. He takes a willing heart and makes it into something useful, something beautiful.
“You have to put these pieces together first, Mom,” my son tells me. “If you don’t, the whole thing will fall apart later. And,” he admonishes, “if you don’t put the pieces in the right place, then the next row won’t fit together right.”
His message makes me smile, because unlike the Legos that have no choice of where their creator puts them, we have a choice of whether or not we go where God guides us, whether we stay on the firm foundation or head over to a less stable area of life.
We don’t see the big picture. We don’t understand that millions of pieces can come together in perfect order when given over to the master builder. We only see chaos and disorder. We see partially built creations and set about trying to hurry the process to completion. Never mind that we get pieces out of place or that the next row won’t fit right. We’ll build around it. We’ll bridge over it. We’ll find a way to go on, and rather than doing it right, we’ll do it our way. Anything to show progress. Anything to be in charge.
I learned a saying many years ago and have always loved it. It has become my mantra, so to speak. It has definitely guided my days from time to time. What is this profound wisdom?
Have your ducks in a row.
As an organized person, I’ve not only got those ducks in a row, but they are also color-coded and numbered for easy reference. My ducks know where they go and where they don’t go. They are perfectly ordered for maximum benefit.
A while back my ducks got out of line. They not only got out of the line but they also began to scatter all over the field. Some of the ducks didn’t even bother to stick around, while new, trouble-making ducks decided to join the party.
I ran in a wild display of freakish ambition, trying to rearrange my ducks. I’d no sooner make a tiny bit of progress with the ducks nearest to me, when I’d have to turn my attention on those ducks about to be run over by the express trains of life. By the time I turned back to the few ducks I’d managed to reorganize—well, you can imagine what had happened. That’s right, they were off and running again.
My Lego pieces were scattered—my ducks were running amuck—life just plain didn’t make sense, and I couldn’t begin to conceive that God had a plan for me. Much less that I could follow it up with the next portion of that verse: “plans to prosper you and not to harm you.”
Whoa! Hold it right there. I can tell you here and now, I didn’t feel prospered. I felt harmed. Run over. Smashed upon the rocks. Devastated.
Ever feel that way? Have you ever felt like God was standing over you with a God-sized flyswatter, ready to do business? Boy, I did.
I tried to rationalize it, telling myself, “Perhaps God is bringing you new ducks. Perhaps He doesn’t like the ducks you’re working with now.”
I tried to get all pious and religious. Sanctification and spiritualization required the contemplation of the ramifications. Huh? Those ducks were speaking a foreign language.
I tried to blame myself. Maybe if I’d only nailed those little duck feet to the floor . . . Maybe if I’d caught the very first duck to move . . .
I tried to blame others. “Okay, who moved my ducks?”
I tried to dance around the issues at hand. Maybe these aren’t really my ducks. Maybe I’m in the wrong place and these are somebody else’s ducks.
But over and over God kept bringing me back to Jeremiah 29:11: “plans to give you hope and a future.”
Let me tell you, when my world is in disorder, I have very little hope. When I look at that pile of Legos or the ducks running amuck, I feel completely hopeless. What possible order can come from this disorder? How can things ever be right again?
Maybe you’ve been there too. Maybe God started you out on a good foundation: all the pieces fit. But then you moved your pieces, or, worse yet, had them moved for you, and now the foundation isn’t quite so solid.
I remember a Christian family in our community: a pastor, his wife, and their two children; a wonderful family, who expressed true Christian love to their neighbors, their church, and their town. Their foundation was solid—their ducks were in a row. Then a man who had slipped through the justice system murdered their daughter. Their ducks scattered: the murderer moved their pieces.
The beautiful creation that had started out as a lovely family not only lost pieces of their structure . . . they lost a beautiful child who had given them many moments of love and hope. A child who had shared the Gospel with her friends. A child who did not deserve the early fate she got.
This event totally shook me. After all, here was a family who served the Lord in fervent love and joy. This girl’s mother must have prayed for her children as I did mine. This girl’s father surely worked to see his family spiritually fed and growing in the truth.
I couldn’t see the big picture. I couldn’t look at the pile of colored blocks and broken dreams and see how God could possibly make anything good out of this chaos. I felt afraid. I argued with God.
“You had the power, Lord, to keep this horrible thing from happening, so why didn’t you?”
I mourned this child’s passing as if I knew her personally. I thought of the waste—the utter and complete waste. I thought of justice and revenge. I thought of how unfair it was, how it might have been one of my daughters.
Then I became scared.
“Plans to give you hope and a future.”
Those words seemed so distant. So difficult.
But then something amazing started to happen. Like wildfire, the word began to spread. One person after another was touched by this child’s life as much as they were by her death. School friends began to talk of her faith in Jesus Christ. Kids who had only heard of this child began seeking salvation and a way out of the mire that had become their existence.
God was building with His blocks. Here a red one. There a blue. Oh, and don’t forget those hard-to-find green ones.
Adults hardened by the difficulties of life wept openly at the poetry penned by this child. They listened to the stories told of her faithfulness, of her witness. They watched the family who chose to focus on their love and the joy of their child rather than on the man who stole her from them.
God knew the bigger picture. He knew what was to come down the road. What seemed chaotic and hopeless to us was but a flashing moment to Him.
“I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper and not to harm. . . .”
He’s in control. He sees beyond the hopelessness. He is lighting up the darkness and settling down t
o work. To once again make order out of disorder, to gather His loved ones together.
Maybe lost children instead of ducks.
Maybe hearts instead of building blocks.
The light falls across His workbench in the shape of a cross . . . the shape of hope and a future.
7
The Waiting Is the Hardest Part
Waiting has never been my forte. Just ask anyone who knows me. I don’t wait in ease. Those verses that speak to letting the Lord fight the battle, while I sit still, are ones I figured He wrote for someone else. Resting in the Lord, hiding in the shelter of His protection, waiting for Him to act, those seem to be situations of inactivity, and I’m a very active person.
My oldest daughter reminds me of myself in that way. She wants quick resolution and instantaneous results. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be the best result, just any result. Anything at all that implies life is moving forward.
To say I live life in the fast lane wouldn’t exactly be accurate. I’m not jet-setting and running from party to party. Neither am I given over to hundreds of great causes and entertainments. But if life in the fast lane means that I seldom sit still long enough to catch my breath—nor can anyone around me—then I’m guilty as charged.
There’s just something about waiting that irritates me. I can’t stand to be put on hold, and yet time and time again I find it seems to be my lot in life. I called the phone company the other day, and after making nearly a dozen choices of pressing either #1 or #2, I was finally connected to a computerized voice that told me all the customer assistants were busy at that moment, and would I please hold for the next available assistant?
Waiting is like being told, “You aren’t important enough to deal with just yet.” Waiting is like being the last kid picked for the baseball team. Waiting is—well, it’s hard.
It shouldn’t be hard. After all, there’s really nothing you have to do. You have to wait, but what is that?
I figure waiting is like that moment at your senior prom when the music ends. You’re out there on the dance floor, uncertain whether you’ll dance the next dance or sit down. You want to wait for the next song to start, but you don’t want to look stupid standing there. Waiting is a passage of time over which I have no control. And that’s what grieves me—the loss of control.
Eyes of the Heart, The: Seeing God's Hand in the Everyday Moments of Life Page 3
