Delighting In Us

Jason and I took a parenting class long ago when I was pregnant with Abby.  The fist session was the one I remember the most.  The material used in the class came from their own personal study of going through the Bible and highlighting the passages from Genesis on that talked about God as a Father.  This may seem like a no brainer but it struck me then and has stayed with me these ten years.

I recently read through the book of Isaiah and focused in God's role as Father to His rebellious children.  One thing that really struck me is how unlike God I am when I find my kids in rebellion.  It is so easy to feel burdened or even justified in being put out or let down when a child rebels.  It is hard to look on them and delight in them in times of disobedience.  But in the end of Isaiah I took out a pen and highlighted the words that God used to describe His rebellious ones.  I was very convicted and humbled to see how loving and tender God is to His children when they are  hard hearted and stupid.

Judgment did come. But God judged them with exile so that they would return to Him and learn to stay close to Him.  God delights in His people and they are precious in His sight.  He is just as well.  We often remember the justice of God and forget that it is not to be divorced from the grace of God. God delights in giving us grace.  Grace to Israel was Assyria.  Grace to Judah was Babylon. When reading Daniel we can see how loving God was and how exile did just what God wanted it to......repentance so that His children could be near to Him once more.  God delights to bring us near and we are precious to Him.  He is a tender Father.  He is not  pushover for Assyria and Babylon did come and take the Israelites captive.  But after captivity we see that His family became even larger and took in children from other nations as well as bringing Israel back to Him. Our parenting needs to copy that of our Father in Heaven and we should delight in our precious children when they sin and rebel, bringing them to restoration, knowing that this is what God does for us again and again.