The much-told story, as I remember it, goes like this: an employee made a mistake which cost the company $10,000.00. When this was related to one of the VPs of the company, he immediately responded that that employee was surely terminated. The response from the Company’s President was surprisingly different. ‘Certainly not! That employee is now worth $10,000.00 to me! He’ll never make a mistake like that again!
This president reminds me of our Heavenly Father. His continuing to see inestimable value in that employee while seeing the mistake, is a refreshing reprieve from the crushing, dismissive ways of the world. That one is always just one mistake away from being fired is a heavy burden to carry.
Our Heavenly Father is the ideal father. Because He is Love, His choosing of us is a choosing of perfect love. He sees who and what we are. He knows what we’ve done and not done. He knows our family history in all its gories and glories. Even if our sins and failures are ‘a multitude’ His love covers them all. They cannot surprise or shock Him. They cannot cause Him to rescind His love. He is the God of endless ‘second chances.’ And it’s because of this that the love of God is often the most difficult to reconcile with our lived experience of love. Our heads may nod in agreement with the fact, but our hearts have learned wariness.
Still, the invitation stands. Our Father waits with eager expectation for us to come to Him. He so desires that we find Him to be true to all that the Scriptures say about Him. King David, in his testimony about God, exhorts: “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who find refuge in Him.” Ps. 34:8 NLT.* ‘Finding refuge’ is what little children do in the arms of their father. May that refuge be our home, in the arms of love. PD
Psalm 34, to sing into your heart
