How Deep the Father’s Love


 
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18
 
Over the last few days I have been praying for my friend’s son and his wife. A week or so ago my friend shared that her son’s wife was having a health crisis. Up until that point it seemed that everything was going their way. They are young and healthy. They both have great jobs, just bought a house and were planning to take a family vacation. Things were great, right up until they weren’t. It all happened suddenly and began with what appeared to be a minor injury. That injury became a much more serious issue and within just a matter of hours it was obvious that there was no simple fix, no cure.

          It was a few days before my friend and her husband could leave their jobs to go to their son’s home, several hours from their own. They arrived fairly early in the morning. When their son saw them he went straight to his father, fell into his arms and began weeping. In the days preceding the arrival of his parents he’d been the strong one, making decisions, facing the hard facts, holding up his precious wife but now Daddy was at his door offering support. Without one word passing between them the son knew that his father would hold him up, offer comfort and strength and the son gratefully received it without hesitation.

As my friend recounted the story my heart went out to her son. He sees himself as exceedingly capable and I’m sure this is an agonizing time for him making him feel helpless and out of control. Later as I prayed for them and thought about her story I saw the bigger picture.

This young man has helped his parents on more than one occasion. He has loudly and vehemently disagreed with them and indicated that as a grown and independent man he doesn’t really need them. He loves them dearly but sees himself moving into a care giving role with them, a role they don’t need from him right now. Yet, in his moment of fear and pain where did he go? Straight to his father’s arms. Smart boy!

Where is our comfort and strength? It is in our Father’s arms. Too often we focus on serving God and trying to prove ourselves. Perhaps more often we go to our heavenly Father with our wants and needs in the form of what we hope is eloquent prayer. How often do we simply fall into His arms or at His feet and just let Him hold us, comfort and strengthen us?

God loves the humble, the meek and the brokenhearted. He longs to bless us in our weakness and give us His strength. We don’t need to clean up and practice our speeches before we seek Him. We need only to go to Him, run to the safety of His arms and let Him do the rest.

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