It goes without saying that parenthood has taught me a great deal: about God, about myself, about our humanity and depravity. Many things I see in my children I see in myself. I wonder if how I view my kids is how God views me.
I have three sons: Duncan, Desmond, and Dekker. Dekker is learning to walk, which means he is a professional crawler! The other day I decided to let him have free reign crawling around outside. Fortunately, he stayed on the porch. For the most part...
We have a plastic picnic table that Dekker started to crawl under. While he was under the seat, Dekker tried to stand up, but he kept hitting his head (poor guy!). I was watching him and wanted to communicate to his young mind that if he just kept crawling forward, he would be out from under the bench and would be free to stand up! Even if I had said these words to him, Dekker would not have understood because he’s only one year old. In his little mind, he had no idea what was hindering him from standing, but as his mom I could see the entire situation and knew what was needed for relief.
Isn’t that true of us and God? So often we are moving along (probably at a crawling pace) in life feeling like everything is going well, but then we get stuck; we can’t stand, and we don’t know why. We don’t see the whole picture as God does.
In our limited vision, all we know is we can’t stand up. What is the deal? Why is this season dragging on? When will the dark night end?
Perhaps if we could hear God's thoughts toward us, we'd hear, “Keep going, my child. You are almost on the other side. Not long now.” Maybe on this side of heaven we’ll never know why certain things happen, but we can know that the Lord of the universe walks through the valleys with us. He never leaves us to suffer alone.
Psalm 23:4 —Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Lord, increase our faith. Give us eyes to see your hand at work in our lives even when we don’t feel it. Remind us that our suffering will only last a little while, that the light of the world is on our side. The dark night of our souls will end. Remind us that you are still on your throne and still in control. Amen.