Dependable Dad!

Lam.3:²² (VOICE) “How enduring is God’s loyal love; the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion. ²³ Here they are, every morning, new! Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day. ²⁴ Have courage, for the Eternal is all that I will need. My soul boasts, “Hope in God; just wait.”

Our final thought from yesterday’s devotional was this; when you realize that God is all that you have, then you will discover that God is all that you need. Really, until you realize that God is all that you have, you will continue to look to external things to meet your security need. It is not God and a rich uncle, or God and your spouse, or God and your good job or thriving business, or God and your government, or God and a good system. But until you realize that God is all that you have, then you will actually discover that He is all that you need. It is in the valley of the shadow of death that you realize that God is all you have, and this is why God takes us on this path. While you are walking through the middle of the Red Sea, it suddenly dawns on you that God is all you have. That is when you actually begin to embrace the fact that God is all you need really.

If you are still depending on a good degree, on your intellect, on your acumen, on your family line or family name, you still would not get it. One major reason children trust their parents is because they trust in their parent’s ability. A child standing on the balcony of a storey building will most likely jump into the arms of his father standing on ground level without even thinking about it. As soon as the father says jump, that child will leap. While children will jump because of trust, adults are not so trusting. If a husband tells his wife on the balcony to jump, do you think she will do it as confidently as a child would? She probably would say her suspicions have been confirmed, and that he has been plotting to kill her so that he can marry another wife.

However, the truth is that if I tell my wife to jump, she would jump. You can ask her yourself and she would not lie. If you know her well, you would know she would just say it as it is. Can your husband ask you to jump and you will jump? Can you ask your husband to jump and he would jump? We trust our parents because we depend, and we are confident in their abilities. However, when we show up before our parents with problems we believe they are able to solve and they do not proffer a solution, we feel vulnerable. The truth about life is this; no matter how great the abilities of our parents are, they can only escort us thus far and no more. But if God is your shepherd, no matter how dark the valley is, no matter how complex the problem is, you can take it to Him and He will solve it. This is why David could say, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I would fear no evil. God does not diminish in power.

Prayer [Hymn]: Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changes not, Thy compassion, they fail not. As Thou forever will be. Amen!