The Heart of the Father (Jonathan Ng)
The Heart of the Father
For many people, the passing of a new year often signifies a time of reflection and renewal.
In the business world, for instance, the end of a fiscal year signifies a time to look back to see how the numbers add up. As professionals, we often review our performance over the past year; our salaries might be reassessed based on that performance. We look back as a community: year end signifies a time when we reflect on the relationships and events of a community. As a church - we spend much of the end of a year celebrating Jesus' birth and remembering how God has been faithful to us as a church this past year.
We also do this personally: some of us take stock of how much we've earned or owe this past year; we take stock of what we've learned; we renew our relationships, but most of all, as Christians, we reflect on how we have grown in Christ this past year.
I would imagine that this year is no different. We have seen much happen at the Bridge, amongst the people within the Bridge and within our community here in Kitsilano. God is at work, all the time.
In line with this theme, I want to share with you some reflections of my own. A lot has happened in my life these past two years, but probably none as significant as my "graduation" into fatherhood. As many of you know, just a little over two years ago, my wife gave birth to our firstborn son named Erich. God has been teaching the two of us much about parenthood since.
Henri Nouwen, in his book "The Return of the Prodigal Son" put it succinctly when he describes this journey of graduating to fatherhood. As Nouwen expounds on Jesus' famous parable, he suggests that as we live life we often look at life as though we are one of the sons:
- perhaps like the prodigal son who desires so much to strike it on his own, free from all the boundaries set by the father and looking for unconditional love in all the wrong places.
or perhaps like the elder son:
- jealous of the father's love for his rebellious sibling and thinking he deserves more of his father's love than him.
But Nouwen's striking conclusion is that in both cases, we are called not to be sons but to grow up and be the father - in other words, as we mature as Christians, we are to recognize that we are made in the image of God, and that we are to become more like our Heavenly Father.
In my graduating to become a father, I have found that in between learning how to change diapers and being a goofy dad, I have gained a new appreciation for the heart of our Heavenly Father. Becoming a father has opened up a whole new perspective on my view of who God is. Allow me to share some of these characteristics with you this morning:
1. Our Father is a creative being.
Erich was born December 21st, 2005 via C-section at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. Karen had been in labour for almost 24 hours when doctors determined that Erich was too big to come out the natural way. As we rushed into the operating room, I could hardly catch my breath let alone my thoughts as one second there was me and Karen, and the next moment, there were three.
I cannot describe for you the sense of awe that you get when you see a baby born for the very first time. What was once just sperm and egg, and a decision by two is now a new creation - something that is part of you and your spouse forever.
I remember holding Erich for the first time. He was so precious. Here in my arms was this tiny baby. Erich looked up into my eyes and I knew he was my son. He had life.
There was no doubt in my mind at that moment that God is his Creator. The birth of life is truly a miracle. Just like the account in Genesis 2:7 when the Bible says that "the LORD God formed [Adam] the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being", I experienced God breathing life into my child that day. What I experienced that day was more than pure evolutionary process: it was divine intention and it left me in awe of the intricacies of new life.
Think about this for a second - how have you thanked God lately for your life and what He has given you? More importantly do you doubt that if God has the power to create physical life that he would also have the power to give you a new spiritual birth through His Son Jesus?
The Bible talks much about God being the Creator. Consider what the apostle John writes in the beginning of his gospel: "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:3-5)
John 1:12 - "Yet to all who received him [Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will but born of God."
Becoming a father has made me much more attuned to Our Father as a creative being. Creativity implies intention. I am filled with gratitude and joy when I think about this because I know that my God is a personal God - one that intends to create and one that intends to know us.
2. God is not for those that have it all together, but for those that all together need Him
At the same time I had these joyous thoughts of God being the Creator, I also remember having thoughts of inadequacy - "What now?" I would ask myself. I had never been a father. My own father was less than perfect, how would I raise this child to be someone that longed after God's heart? But then God reminded me that our strength lies not in us but in a perfect Father in Heaven.
Erich's first few days of life were filled with uncertainty. Though not life threatening, he was diagnosed with a mild form of jaundice, and so we, though exhausted, were required to stay in the hospital longer than we would have otherwise. Because Erich's birthday is so close to Christmas, this meant that we wouldn't be home for Christmas.
Our family, like most, has the time-honoured tradition every Christmas of Christmas dinner. You know, the informal "formal" affair, where family dress their best for dinner and sing some carols around the piano. The year Erich was born changed all of that. We ended up moving family dinner from our traditional venue on Walnut Street to Room 11 at the Maternity Ward of St. Paul's Hospital. Instead of oven-baked roast ham served with cranberry sauce on fine china, and wine from the finest grapes, we had ham sandwiches with raisin bread served on paper towels with cranberry juice.
Reflecting back on the experience though, it was like no other. Perhaps a prayer my sister said that night just before our meal reflected our emotions best: Christmas isn't about having it all together; after all Christ's birth was in less than ideal circumstances. But Christmas is about the Creator loving His created despite the circumstances: sending His son to save us and to show His love despite His disgust for our sin. Though we could never understand fully the intricate details of what must have gone on in Jesus' earthly family and the Holy Trinity that very first Christmas, we couldn't help but muse at some of the similarities: God's son, after all, changed tradition forever.
Never had we been so tired, so helpless and so confused! Certainly we had experienced days of sleeplessness when we were students, but never was our alertness and our attention and our love so absolutely required. Assignment deadlines can be missed; exams can be failed; courses ignored, but a child - our child - cannot. Our child demanded our love and our attention. Certainly puts things into perspective doesn't it?
I learned two lessons this day:
Lesson #1: I learned that God is not for those that have it all together, but God desires those who altogether need him. Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount affirms this in Matthew 6:33 - "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."
Lesson #2: I also learned that we are God's child. Just like I absolutely had to love my child and nurture him, we ought to rest assured that there is nothing that can make God love us less, and nothing we can do to make Him love us more. He loves us and desires to have a relationship with us because we are His creation.
1 John 3:1 affirms this: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him."
Think about this for a second. You are God's creation. Have you recognized the love that He has for you?
3. Our Father is a personal God. He desires to have fellowship with us.
When you love someone, you desire to spend time with them. As I looked at my son, I realized how much I longed to have a relationship with him. I would day dream about the times we would have together; your whole outlook on life changes - you begin to see opportunities where father and son can bond. I longed for the day that he could finally communicate with me, and when he did, I would express how much I loved him.
I still remember the first day when he was able to utter "mummy" and "daddy". I tell you as a parent, that makes you so very proud. It makes me happy not so much because he was able to utter the words, but because his reaction was an implicit acknowledgment from his heart of who I am to him. It was an implicit acknowledgment of our relationship.
It made me think too that God's desire to fellowship with us is much like that as well. Our Heavenly Father is also a personal God. He desires to fellowship with us, and He longs for us to love Him and acknowledge Him.
Think about this for a moment too. Have you realised how much God desires to have a relationship with you?
Consider this psalm of David - psalm 139. See if you can pick out God's desire to know us and love us as I read.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
A relationship is so much different than knowledge. I could stand here and tell you a whole bunch of facts about Erich but that doesn't prove that I love him. That is shown in how I relate to him. King David, the writer of this psalm didn't just know OF God, he KNEW God.
Similarly, you can learn all you can about God, but unless you know Him in your heart, there is no relationship.
4. Our Father is a righteous God. He desires that we do right.
Not long after Erich learned the words "mummy" and "daddy", Erich also learned the word "No!". (We were kind of hoping he'd learn the word "yes" first, but alas...)
Learning the word no also means that Erich now knows how to disobey. Now when Erich doesn't do what his mummy and daddy would like him to do, it can be quite fascinating. I have observed this several times when Erich will look at me, as if to ask for approval. When I say no, he faces a choice. A deliberate pause on his part indicates to me that he makes a decision. In other words, from a very young age, it was obvious that to do wrong is a choice that we make rather than something we do out of ignorance.
Watching Erich deliberately disobey even though he knows otherwise breaks my heart. Why? Because as a parent, my boundaries that I set for my child is an implicit expression of my love. I desire that he not touch a hot stove, for instance, because I know that it will harm him. When he disobeys me, it is as if he is deaf to my voice of love.
Of course as a child of God, we do the same thing when we sin against God, our Heavenly Father. How often do I deliberately do wrong even when I know that I am disobeying the will of God, and even when I know God has my best interest in mind?
The Bible is full of examples of how we are often deaf to the loving and righteous love of the Father. It climaxes in Isaiah 53:6 when the prophet Isaiah exclaims, "we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way."
How about you? Have you been turning a deaf ear to God's love for you and justifying your sin as something that you do just out of ignorance? Are you taking responsibility for it?
5. Our Father is a gracious God. He desires to forgive us and for us to forgive others.
The final story has to do with the real heart of the Father. I think one of the biggest lessons I have learned since becoming a father is that our Heavenly Father is gracious... oh He is sooo gracious. Though my son does do wrong at times and deliberately disobeys me, I have to continually remind myself to be gracious. Just like disobedience is a choice, dispensing grace is also a choice. So often, as a father, it becomes so easy to rely on simple truth and consequence - that is: Erich, you do this, then you'll get that. I sometimes have to remind myself that with our Father in Heaven, though the principle of truth and consequence does apply, so much of what God gives us is NOT deserved. It is done out of a deliberate will to dispense grace.
Isaiah continues in chapter 53 to tell us about God's deliberate choice to forgive us through His Son Jesus, the Messiah. He says in the latter part of verse 6 - "and the LORD has laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all." then skipping ahead to verse 10, "Yet it was the LORD's will to crush [Jesus] him and cause him to suffer and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand."
Jesus himself also asserted that this was God's will. As the famous verse in John 3:16 quotes, "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." Grace is getting God, our Father's deliberate will to give us His riches, His love, His fellowship at His expense.
I still remember this one time Erich had really upset us. I don't even remember what it was about, but I do remember the look on his face after we had scolded him. He knew he had done something wrong, and he knew he was sorry. In this particular case it had to do with mummy, so I quietly whispered in his ear that he'd better go and tell mummy that he is sorry. So he bravely walked up to Karen, tapped her on her legs and said "Sorry mummy".
Karen's heart melted at that point and I could tell she was filled with compassion for Erich. My heart was too, and I can only imagine what it must be like for God to see one of his own come back to him in repentance and for us to be able to receive grace.
Learning to have a heart that forgives and forgives often not only teaches Erich about grace; it reminds me of my own need for grace from God. Many of you know the gospel story - you know that God forgives you but how have you taken this to heart lately? Do you recognize the riches that God wants to lavish upon you not because you deserve it, but because he wills it? When others wrong you, do you choose to forgive and demonstrate grace?
Conclusion
My prayer for Erich is that he would grow up to be a man that longs after God's own heart. And the prayer I have for myself and for my wife is that God would grant us the grace, wisdom and strength to bring him up to follow Him.
As I adjust to my new role as a father, I find myself reexamining all that I think a father should be, and trying to sort out what things are as they should be and what things are merely a longing and a reflection of what I did not have as a child. Most importantly, I find myself discovering and rediscovering attributes of God that I previously did not see. I hope that today by sharing some of what I have learned, I have encouraged you in your walk with Jesus. I hope that you have gained a new perspective into the heart of the Father.
For many people, the passing of a new year often signifies a time of reflection and renewal.
In the business world, for instance, the end of a fiscal year signifies a time to look back to see how the numbers add up. As professionals, we often review our performance over the past year; our salaries might be reassessed based on that performance. We look back as a community: year end signifies a time when we reflect on the relationships and events of a community. As a church - we spend much of the end of a year celebrating Jesus' birth and remembering how God has been faithful to us as a church this past year.
We also do this personally: some of us take stock of how much we've earned or owe this past year; we take stock of what we've learned; we renew our relationships, but most of all, as Christians, we reflect on how we have grown in Christ this past year.
I would imagine that this year is no different. We have seen much happen at the Bridge, amongst the people within the Bridge and within our community here in Kitsilano. God is at work, all the time.
In line with this theme, I want to share with you some reflections of my own. A lot has happened in my life these past two years, but probably none as significant as my "graduation" into fatherhood. As many of you know, just a little over two years ago, my wife gave birth to our firstborn son named Erich. God has been teaching the two of us much about parenthood since.
Henri Nouwen, in his book "The Return of the Prodigal Son" put it succinctly when he describes this journey of graduating to fatherhood. As Nouwen expounds on Jesus' famous parable, he suggests that as we live life we often look at life as though we are one of the sons:
- perhaps like the prodigal son who desires so much to strike it on his own, free from all the boundaries set by the father and looking for unconditional love in all the wrong places.
or perhaps like the elder son:
- jealous of the father's love for his rebellious sibling and thinking he deserves more of his father's love than him.
But Nouwen's striking conclusion is that in both cases, we are called not to be sons but to grow up and be the father - in other words, as we mature as Christians, we are to recognize that we are made in the image of God, and that we are to become more like our Heavenly Father.
In my graduating to become a father, I have found that in between learning how to change diapers and being a goofy dad, I have gained a new appreciation for the heart of our Heavenly Father. Becoming a father has opened up a whole new perspective on my view of who God is. Allow me to share some of these characteristics with you this morning:
1. Our Father is a creative being.
Erich was born December 21st, 2005 via C-section at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. Karen had been in labour for almost 24 hours when doctors determined that Erich was too big to come out the natural way. As we rushed into the operating room, I could hardly catch my breath let alone my thoughts as one second there was me and Karen, and the next moment, there were three.
I cannot describe for you the sense of awe that you get when you see a baby born for the very first time. What was once just sperm and egg, and a decision by two is now a new creation - something that is part of you and your spouse forever.
I remember holding Erich for the first time. He was so precious. Here in my arms was this tiny baby. Erich looked up into my eyes and I knew he was my son. He had life.
There was no doubt in my mind at that moment that God is his Creator. The birth of life is truly a miracle. Just like the account in Genesis 2:7 when the Bible says that "the LORD God formed [Adam] the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being", I experienced God breathing life into my child that day. What I experienced that day was more than pure evolutionary process: it was divine intention and it left me in awe of the intricacies of new life.
Think about this for a second - how have you thanked God lately for your life and what He has given you? More importantly do you doubt that if God has the power to create physical life that he would also have the power to give you a new spiritual birth through His Son Jesus?
The Bible talks much about God being the Creator. Consider what the apostle John writes in the beginning of his gospel: "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:3-5)
John 1:12 - "Yet to all who received him [Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will but born of God."
Becoming a father has made me much more attuned to Our Father as a creative being. Creativity implies intention. I am filled with gratitude and joy when I think about this because I know that my God is a personal God - one that intends to create and one that intends to know us.
2. God is not for those that have it all together, but for those that all together need Him
At the same time I had these joyous thoughts of God being the Creator, I also remember having thoughts of inadequacy - "What now?" I would ask myself. I had never been a father. My own father was less than perfect, how would I raise this child to be someone that longed after God's heart? But then God reminded me that our strength lies not in us but in a perfect Father in Heaven.
Erich's first few days of life were filled with uncertainty. Though not life threatening, he was diagnosed with a mild form of jaundice, and so we, though exhausted, were required to stay in the hospital longer than we would have otherwise. Because Erich's birthday is so close to Christmas, this meant that we wouldn't be home for Christmas.
Our family, like most, has the time-honoured tradition every Christmas of Christmas dinner. You know, the informal "formal" affair, where family dress their best for dinner and sing some carols around the piano. The year Erich was born changed all of that. We ended up moving family dinner from our traditional venue on Walnut Street to Room 11 at the Maternity Ward of St. Paul's Hospital. Instead of oven-baked roast ham served with cranberry sauce on fine china, and wine from the finest grapes, we had ham sandwiches with raisin bread served on paper towels with cranberry juice.
Reflecting back on the experience though, it was like no other. Perhaps a prayer my sister said that night just before our meal reflected our emotions best: Christmas isn't about having it all together; after all Christ's birth was in less than ideal circumstances. But Christmas is about the Creator loving His created despite the circumstances: sending His son to save us and to show His love despite His disgust for our sin. Though we could never understand fully the intricate details of what must have gone on in Jesus' earthly family and the Holy Trinity that very first Christmas, we couldn't help but muse at some of the similarities: God's son, after all, changed tradition forever.
Never had we been so tired, so helpless and so confused! Certainly we had experienced days of sleeplessness when we were students, but never was our alertness and our attention and our love so absolutely required. Assignment deadlines can be missed; exams can be failed; courses ignored, but a child - our child - cannot. Our child demanded our love and our attention. Certainly puts things into perspective doesn't it?
I learned two lessons this day:
Lesson #1: I learned that God is not for those that have it all together, but God desires those who altogether need him. Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount affirms this in Matthew 6:33 - "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."
Lesson #2: I also learned that we are God's child. Just like I absolutely had to love my child and nurture him, we ought to rest assured that there is nothing that can make God love us less, and nothing we can do to make Him love us more. He loves us and desires to have a relationship with us because we are His creation.
1 John 3:1 affirms this: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him."
Think about this for a second. You are God's creation. Have you recognized the love that He has for you?
3. Our Father is a personal God. He desires to have fellowship with us.
When you love someone, you desire to spend time with them. As I looked at my son, I realized how much I longed to have a relationship with him. I would day dream about the times we would have together; your whole outlook on life changes - you begin to see opportunities where father and son can bond. I longed for the day that he could finally communicate with me, and when he did, I would express how much I loved him.
I still remember the first day when he was able to utter "mummy" and "daddy". I tell you as a parent, that makes you so very proud. It makes me happy not so much because he was able to utter the words, but because his reaction was an implicit acknowledgment from his heart of who I am to him. It was an implicit acknowledgment of our relationship.
It made me think too that God's desire to fellowship with us is much like that as well. Our Heavenly Father is also a personal God. He desires to fellowship with us, and He longs for us to love Him and acknowledge Him.
Think about this for a moment too. Have you realised how much God desires to have a relationship with you?
Consider this psalm of David - psalm 139. See if you can pick out God's desire to know us and love us as I read.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
A relationship is so much different than knowledge. I could stand here and tell you a whole bunch of facts about Erich but that doesn't prove that I love him. That is shown in how I relate to him. King David, the writer of this psalm didn't just know OF God, he KNEW God.
Similarly, you can learn all you can about God, but unless you know Him in your heart, there is no relationship.
4. Our Father is a righteous God. He desires that we do right.
Not long after Erich learned the words "mummy" and "daddy", Erich also learned the word "No!". (We were kind of hoping he'd learn the word "yes" first, but alas...)
Learning the word no also means that Erich now knows how to disobey. Now when Erich doesn't do what his mummy and daddy would like him to do, it can be quite fascinating. I have observed this several times when Erich will look at me, as if to ask for approval. When I say no, he faces a choice. A deliberate pause on his part indicates to me that he makes a decision. In other words, from a very young age, it was obvious that to do wrong is a choice that we make rather than something we do out of ignorance.
Watching Erich deliberately disobey even though he knows otherwise breaks my heart. Why? Because as a parent, my boundaries that I set for my child is an implicit expression of my love. I desire that he not touch a hot stove, for instance, because I know that it will harm him. When he disobeys me, it is as if he is deaf to my voice of love.
Of course as a child of God, we do the same thing when we sin against God, our Heavenly Father. How often do I deliberately do wrong even when I know that I am disobeying the will of God, and even when I know God has my best interest in mind?
The Bible is full of examples of how we are often deaf to the loving and righteous love of the Father. It climaxes in Isaiah 53:6 when the prophet Isaiah exclaims, "we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way."
How about you? Have you been turning a deaf ear to God's love for you and justifying your sin as something that you do just out of ignorance? Are you taking responsibility for it?
5. Our Father is a gracious God. He desires to forgive us and for us to forgive others.
The final story has to do with the real heart of the Father. I think one of the biggest lessons I have learned since becoming a father is that our Heavenly Father is gracious... oh He is sooo gracious. Though my son does do wrong at times and deliberately disobeys me, I have to continually remind myself to be gracious. Just like disobedience is a choice, dispensing grace is also a choice. So often, as a father, it becomes so easy to rely on simple truth and consequence - that is: Erich, you do this, then you'll get that. I sometimes have to remind myself that with our Father in Heaven, though the principle of truth and consequence does apply, so much of what God gives us is NOT deserved. It is done out of a deliberate will to dispense grace.
Isaiah continues in chapter 53 to tell us about God's deliberate choice to forgive us through His Son Jesus, the Messiah. He says in the latter part of verse 6 - "and the LORD has laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all." then skipping ahead to verse 10, "Yet it was the LORD's will to crush [Jesus] him and cause him to suffer and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand."
Jesus himself also asserted that this was God's will. As the famous verse in John 3:16 quotes, "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." Grace is getting God, our Father's deliberate will to give us His riches, His love, His fellowship at His expense.
I still remember this one time Erich had really upset us. I don't even remember what it was about, but I do remember the look on his face after we had scolded him. He knew he had done something wrong, and he knew he was sorry. In this particular case it had to do with mummy, so I quietly whispered in his ear that he'd better go and tell mummy that he is sorry. So he bravely walked up to Karen, tapped her on her legs and said "Sorry mummy".
Karen's heart melted at that point and I could tell she was filled with compassion for Erich. My heart was too, and I can only imagine what it must be like for God to see one of his own come back to him in repentance and for us to be able to receive grace.
Learning to have a heart that forgives and forgives often not only teaches Erich about grace; it reminds me of my own need for grace from God. Many of you know the gospel story - you know that God forgives you but how have you taken this to heart lately? Do you recognize the riches that God wants to lavish upon you not because you deserve it, but because he wills it? When others wrong you, do you choose to forgive and demonstrate grace?
Conclusion
My prayer for Erich is that he would grow up to be a man that longs after God's own heart. And the prayer I have for myself and for my wife is that God would grant us the grace, wisdom and strength to bring him up to follow Him.
As I adjust to my new role as a father, I find myself reexamining all that I think a father should be, and trying to sort out what things are as they should be and what things are merely a longing and a reflection of what I did not have as a child. Most importantly, I find myself discovering and rediscovering attributes of God that I previously did not see. I hope that today by sharing some of what I have learned, I have encouraged you in your walk with Jesus. I hope that you have gained a new perspective into the heart of the Father.