Who’s Your Daddy?
Psalm 86:15 – “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”.
Who’s Your Daddy?
?We all get depressed. We all wonder at times if anyone truly loves us. Even when we hear the words “I love you” we wonder what they really mean. What’s it all about anyway? We get tired and wonder If all our effort really worth it? Is anyone truly happy? Is real love to be found anywhere? The world can seem like a cold dark place sometimes. I think it's that way for everybody.
The suicides of several well-known celebrities lately only bring more questions, aren’t these people suppose to be happy? After all they are rich and famous, they have risen to the top, if they can’t be happy then nobody can. Right?
Wrong! As one who has battled the dark demons of doubt depression all her life I think I have an idea what our problem is. Our problem is that we forget who we really are and who it is who loves us. Your mate may or may not love you depending on the situation and your kids may forget your name and where you live. Your parents may be long departed and your siblings busy with their own lives. Your friends just want to borrow money and your neighbors may look the other way when you pass by. It is easy to feel unloved and unwanted but we have to remember, we can't depend on any other flawed human being for our happiness, much less our hope and our peace.
But there is one who loves you, there is one who knows just exactly who and what you are. The Bible speaks of this when it says in (Psalm 56:8). “You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” I loved my children dearly and as sentimental as I was, I didn’t collect their tears and save them in a bottle. This is crazy sweet and very odd at the same time. What sort of relationship would it take for one partner to be so concerned about the pain their beloved feels that He would save their tears in a bottle? Is this some sort of crazy mystery? Yes, and it is whispered among the Angels, it is written, that they desire to understand.
It is a wonderful secret, born on the wings of some ancient wind as it blows in from antiquity. From before the sun and stars appeared, it is true, God loves you. He knows you well, but He loves you anyway. Psalm 139:2 says “You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. It is apparent that He keeps careful inventory of his creation and has not forgotten you. Luke 12:7 “But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows”.
When I was a children’s Pastor there was a story I liked to tell about a little boy who built a toy boat. The boat was his pride and joy until through a series of events beyond his control he lost it, then later found himself having to purchase that same boat again at a thrift shop. I think the name of the story was “Little Boat Twice owned”, we are like the little boat, we belonged to God when he made us, but because of our own bad choices we found ourselves separated from him, till he sent his son to redeem us back to himself. There's a verse we all know, John 3:16 which tells us “for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. Also in Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. Before we even knew His name, He loved us.
I don’t know if I love anyone on earth enough to willingly give my son to die for them. If God was willing to do this, surely He must love us even if he seems far away sometimes. Perhaps that happens because he wants us to seek him for a change. There are times in our lives when God woos us like a passionate lover, we are usually just to jaded to recognize Him. To full of ourselves and our problems and desires. When you feel like nobody loves you, remember there is one who does.?
John 15:13 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.
Psalm 116:8-9 (NIV). “For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living”.
Ephesians 2:4-5 –“ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved” …
Okay now, If we recognize and understand that God loves us then we must next resolve the question of why? Genesis 2:7 tells us. “ the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”. Like in the story of the little boat perhaps God feels the pride of a craftsman for His creation but I think it is more than that. When He breathed life into us he imparted a little bit of Himself into every one of us. We are not “little Gods”, as such, but in every one of us there resides a spark of the divine. We are family, Sons and Daughters of God. We can only guess at what eternity has in store for us in Him. It is that spark that will enable us to live forever. But it is our choice as to where.
1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is”.
C.S. Lewis addressed this subject when he spoke at Oxford University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, on June 8, 1941. This quote is from The Weight of Glory
There Are No Ordinary People . by C.S. Lewis
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat – the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself is truly hidden. - C.S.Lewis
?Yes, we are special, and God loves us, we should find comfort and security in the knowledge of these things. There is no reason to feel bad about yourself or to be afraid. Rest in the knowledge that because of Christ there is hope.
Romans 8:37-39 – “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
Romans 5:8 – “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.
Zephaniah 3:17 – “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing”.
1 Peter 5:6-7 – “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you”.
quote from The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis. Lewis delivered this sermon at Oxford University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, on June 8, 1941. It was originally published in January, 1942.]
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