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Who's your Daddy?

Posted August 15, 2008

I'm a sucker for my daughter. I'm not positive, but if my drinking hydrochloric acid brought her joy, I'd siphon the nearest car battery.

Today at lunch she looked at me, opened those big blues as wide as she could, and said "Da-Da".

Da-da. That's me.

*Tee hee!*

You see, I delight in her. Especially when I observe her delighting in me.

And, since I'm created in the image of God, have been imbued with His Spirit as one of His children, it came to me in the form of her toothy, goofy little grin:

If I, a mere man, delight in my daughter,

how much more does my Father, the one who gave me the Spirit which leads me to cry out "Abba!" (literally: "Daddy!") delight in me.

(No, not "Abba" the Swedish Rock Band of the '70's.)

(Not that they didn't rock. They did.)

What I'm getting at is how gratified must the Lord be when He, who loves me enough to die for me, observes me delighting in Him.

Scoff if you will, but, it's probably just...that....simple. After all, I can delight in Ella anytime, anywhere. Whether it be when she smiles at me in the diaper aisle at Target, or when I'm feeding her split peas at the dinner table.

It does not matter what I am doing. If that little girl pauses long enough to recognize me for who I am, look me in the eyes, and acknowledge my existence with a gleeful "Da-da" followed up with a toothy little grin, I'm pretty much good for the rest of the day.

Which in a nutshell, is the Gospel: Being made to recognize who God is, approaching Him in confidence by way of His Son, and then simply delighting in His presence.

Such is the essence of the word "worship". Recognizing something for it's intrinsic value, and acknowledging it for what it is.

Or, as the writer of Lamentations said: "The Lord (not my creature comforts) is my portion. I will therefore wait for Him."

Ella depends upon me and her mother to be her portion. We feed her. We clothe her. We clean her.

We do these things because we love her, and delight in her existence on this planet. So, when she recognizes and then acknowledges us for who we are, our joy as her parents is complete.

Even if it's a little bit clumsy or awkward, and her little brain isn't quite complex enough to say "Father"....That's okay.

I'm good with "Daddy".

(And, so is the Lord. Which is a great relief to me, whose puny little spiritual brain isn't quite capable of saying much more than "Daddy"! when I find myself in His presence. Props to Jesus for taking care of the complexities of the Law on my behalf. Otherwise my "Daddy!" wouldn't be "Daddy!" at all. It'd be something along the lines of "Pardon me, Yahweh, but I believe you're in my chair, and that's my crown you're wearing." See also Isaiah 14:12ish)

But, that's another blog for another time.

Man, I love being a Father. There are so many little lessons when you start paying attention.

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