A Loving Father

As I sat at church last night waiting to speak to a friend, I noticed a young child with it's father waiting as well. The child was curious about everything and never stopped moving. I watched as the father patiently followed behind to remove their hands from anything that the child should not be into. I put down the book I was reading and just watched and thought how often God does that to us.

God follows us as we wander through this life and guides away from things that would harm us. He removes our hands from things that we do not need to handle. He patiently guides into things that are safe and meaningful in this life.

Yet we often reject this guidance and go our own way. Isaiah says, "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way." In our rebellion, God often lets us reap the fruit of our disobedience. I find it sad that we often respond with questions like: why did this happen? what did I do wrong? why didn't God stop it? We all too often want to lay the blame at God's feet for our misconduct and lay on Him the guilt that should be ours when we walk away from the loving guidance and protection of a perfect Father.

When you bemoan not having something you want, ask yourself if it is the protection of God keeping something that would be your ruin from you. And let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.