God Speaking

“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!”

(1 John 3: 1)

I was born in Australia and my grandmother had a holiday cottage beside a lake that emptied into the ocean. At the entrance to the ocean was a long, beautiful beach where the waves rolled in majestically one after the other. We children loved to swim in the surf, with my father, but there were strict rules to us about going into the water. It was an isolated beach and we rarely saw anybody there and of course no lifeguards. Firstly, my father would check the waves as riptides could form in certain areas, so he chose the place to enter the water. Next rule he went in first as he was an excellent swimmer and liked to catch the waves, we children had to always stay directly behind him in the shallows, so he could always turn his head to count the heads, four of us, and know we were safe. 

I was thinking about my childhood the other day and as I remembered being on the beach, I thought this was a beautiful picture of how our Heavenly Father protects us. He goes before us; he knows the dangers ahead and we need to always to following his guidelines to stay safe.

The Psalmists were very aware of this beautiful promise and repeatedly wrote about it to remind themselves and others as they sang these worship songs. 

“Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him. I will protect him for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I ill deliver him and honor him.” (Psalm 91: 14 – 15)

Just as my earthly father had rules for us children, so does our Heavenly Father have for us. Another incident in my childhood reminds me of this. One time my younger brother and I forgot the rules and had been playing a game in the water and not being aware of how far we had wandered when suddenly our father appeared out of the water and scolded us. The consequence was to not being allowed to go into the water that day, so we had to sit on the beach and watch our sisters having fun in the water. Perhaps we thought our father was being mean, being totally unaware of his loving protection of us. It is the same for us, God’s laws are not being mean, he gives them to us as a covering for safety. 

When we realize this, we grasp the importance of staying close to our Heavenly Father through prayer and reading his word being aware that this will keep us from wandering into unsafe paths. The Psalmist understood this. 

“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119: 11)