As much as I enjoy being a father, I remember I am also still a child. My dad turns seventy today. As I wish him happy birthday, I think of how often I have had my eyes on him. More than he knows, I still keep my eyes on him. Perhaps that’s the way it should be. I think that’s what gives God pleasure as a Father… seeing our eyes on Him. We obey Him because we love Him… and we love Him because He first loved us.
I found something I wrote a little over two years ago. I was quite weak then, but I was still a father. May God help us keep our eyes where they need to be.
Karlyn, our seven-year-old first grader, performed this morning for the younger children at her school. In my car, from a distance, I watched my little girl as she stood in the midst of fifty other first graders with jump ropes in hand. Karlyn spotted me and waved before her routine began. As the music started, Karlyn eagerly waited for her time to run out with five other classmates and jump rope for the audience. How I smiled as she did things with a jump rope that I can’t do these days. But it was more than performance that brought such emotion to my heart. When she finished, I was the one she turned to find. She didn’t seem to care what her friends thought or even what her teacher thought. She just wanted to know what her dad thought. I was too far away for her to see the tears streaming down my face, but I made sure she saw me clapping my hands above my head. Little Karlyn smiled, waved, and happily ran off to join her classmates. Though I knew her day was just beginning, there was a part of me that couldn’t wait for her to get home that afternoon so I could tell her how proud I was that she was my little girl.
I don’t know that it is to be any more complex for the children of God. We’ve all been given something to do. Whether it is a giant task or something simple, let’s just do the best we can. Make it a habit to look to the Father in Heaven. Smile and wave and watch the Father clap His hands for His children. And if we look very carefully we just might see the glisten of a tear in His eyes, for there is a part of Him that can’t wait to embrace the children that He loves.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. Colossians 3:23-24