A Trustworthy Dad
Max Lucado, Pastor and author, tells of speaking at a funeral of a family friend. The friend’s son told of an incident when a tornado hit their small town.
His father gathered the kids indoors and had them lie under the mattress. The son remembered peeking out from under the mattress and seeing his father standing by a window watching the funnel cloud.
When the young boy saw his father, he crawled out from under the mattress, and ran to wrap his arms around his dad’s leg. “Something told me,” he said, “that the safest place to stand in a storm was next to my father.”
This son had confidence in his dad because his dad had proved himself trustworthy and strong. In the same way, God wants us to draw close to Him because He is trustworthy and strong. The safest place, the most blessed place is to be in the center of our heavenly Father’s will and presence. Let me share the words of Psalm 94 1:1-4 with you:
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
Our heavenly Father is the Most High; the Almighty ; the LORD; He is God. What a great blessing to a person and to those around that person, when he/she comes to know this God and learns to walk with this God. This is doubly so when that person is an earthly father.
The Greatest Need of Our Culture
The greatest need of our day and of our culture is for men who know God and are faithful to God, to their wives, and to their children. We live in a time when many men are not faithful to their Maker God, and as a result they are not faithful to their wives and children.
We live in a time where the debate for many in our Western culture is not “What is the truth?”, but the whole notion: “Is there such a thing as truth?” Many in our culture believe and live like there are no universal truths. In other words, there is no truth that transcends ourselves. It’s all what you make it out to be. It’s totally subjective. There is no truth which refers to objective reality outside of ourselves.
In this worldview, God becomes someone or something different than the biblical view of God. God ceases to be Someone outside of ourselves who created us, who redeems us in Christ and who we are accountable to. Instead, God becomes whatever gives you meaning, whatever gives you warm feelings, whatever gives you a sense of happiness. In effect, God becomes a creation of our own imagination.
This kind of thinking trivializes God and makes the desires and thoughts of broken and selfish human beings as sovereign. Fallen man does not have a good track record. I’d rather put my trust in the God who has revealed Himself in the self-emptying life of His Son Jesus Christ. This God has proven Himself to be trustworthy.
When storm clouds gather like a tornado in our lives and in our culture, we need godly men who fear God and who have a track record of being faithful.
QOTD: Who do you run to when the storm clouds of life are about to overtake you?