So Slow to Believe

September 26, 2007

Lar, I often save these thoughts for the Sinners Raising Saints blog, but it’s on my front burner now, so I will just link to it over there instead. After all, that blog has a lot less readers!

So Abigail is going through a season of constant concern for a big thing in her world: When I leave her bedroom after tucking her in, will I come back and will I leave the door a little bit open?

Yes, that’s right. Here are the big concerns in three-year-old land. Big enough concerns to pester her daddy every few seconds when I am tucking her own. She will ask, maybe a good 10-15 times or so, “Daddy, will you wake me up from my nap (and a nap includes a night’s rest in her world) and will you leave the door a little bit open?” Not only that, but usually, when I leave the room and go downstairs, she is quick to rush to the door to see if it is just right. Surely this is a touch of my touch of obsessive compulsive disorder, but it also points to something else: unbelief.

Yes, unbelief. Time and again I have told her that I will wake her up from her nap and that I will leave the door a little bit open. And time and again (with a few failures I suppose), I (and Erin) have proved myself faithful. Yet the question keeps on coming time and again. She is just so slow to believe. I mean, can you imagine such a thing?

Ok, so I am sure you know where I am headed now. For don’t we tend to relate to God in much the same way as Abigail relates to Erin and I? Sure, He has shown Himself faithful time and again–in generation after generation. Sure, there is even a written record that we study day after day. But will He open the door? Will He provide? Will He come back and grant His sustaining grace in the morning? Let’s admit it, deep within us these questions can’t help but come. We all tend to this heart of unbelief.

But the Lord is O so gracious and patient with us isn’t He? Time and again, He simply answers “Yes.” Yes, I will make good on my Word. And then He does make good on His Word. Again and again and again…. What a gracious God we serve!

So as a parent, this is what I must do: I must be patient as God is patient and then fulfill my word. Pretty simple yes. But not so easy for a fallen human being like myself. The difference surely will be that I will at some point have to repent, while God never will. Why then are we so slow to believe?! Maybe we need to do a better job of taking notes and then reviewing those notes. Maybe we need to do a better job of remembering….

Alright Lar, that is enough for now. Let us praise the Lord for His patience and continually search His Word until we live with hearts full of faith….

Seeking Him with you,
Joe

Posted by Joe | Filed Under Random Musings, Seeking Him