Little Children
Today’s devotional was written by my son, Clark Wrather, who is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Broken Bow, Oklahoma. The Scripture and title have been added.
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. – Romans 8:15-17.
Madison, my oldest son is finally old enough to play T-ball this summer. During his short life, he has learned how to catch a football and I assumed that catching a T-ball would not cause him any problems. One of these days, I’ll stop making assumptions.
For the last couple of months, I’ve played catch with Madison. I’ve tried and tried to get him to use his glove when catching the ball. At first, I had to break him of trapping the ball against his chest, like a football. After this was corrected, the only time he would catch the ball in his glove was when I happened to be able to throw it right in there.
I admire people who work with small children. If I wasn’t losing so much of my hair, I would have pulled some of it out over the last few weeks. I’ve asked several people for advice on how to teach him to catch with his glove. Nothing seemed to work.
I would throw Madison the ball and he would intently watch it fall to the ground right in front of him or beside him. His glove would never move. This has happened hundreds of times.
Finally, last night we were playing catch and amazingly, he moved his glove over and caught the ball three different times! The first time he did it, I was amazed and even surprised that he actually did it. By the third time, I was just plain proud of my boy.
The whole experience gave me insight into our heavenly Father. He constantly tries to teach us things and like small children, we refuse to learn most of the lessons. Its not that we are incapable of learning, but because we don’t care. I bet He gets very frustrated with most of us. I’m sure He has with me over the years.
When we finally learn that lesson He’s been trying to teach us for years, He’s not surprised. Unlike me as a father, the Lord knows we can do the things He tries to teach us. We just have to care about learning them. When we do, He is very proud of His children.
(Our Father wants to teach us many things. Are we teachable?)