The Father’s Affirmation
Timrufus
Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. -Colossians 3:21
Every child longs for love from their father - The affirmation of love from their father. Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Matthew 22:37-39)
I remember how as a kid my sister wouldn’t talk to me for days because she thought our father loved me more, when in fact I was the one who got the most lashes at all times. While I liked to listen to his old grandfather's bedtimes stories, she would always hide under the bed and wouldn’t come out until everyone was gone. But when play time, we could literally raze the whole playground to plain. Come weekends, my sister would tell very interesting little story but I could only sit afar and listen readily at a corner.
It was this affirmation of love from the father she was deprived of. She felt she had been treated most unfairly but she never knew how our father loved her. I had a word with him before he passed on and I knew how he felt towards her but she never know because she had never talked to him all those years. The only thing she could have remembered were his last rebukes to her.
Today, many of us do not want to affirm others but yet we want our boss, our colleague, our friends, our relatives to affirm us in many ways. Most of us had needed an affirmation from one or the other most important person of our life but far more important than that, what we really need is The Father’s affirmation. Jesus said, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Rev 3:20)
The Lord wants to affirm us today. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. To love the Lord your God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. (Matthew 20:28) This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
Yes LORD, you will not accuse forever or will You be always angry. For then the spirit of men will faint away because of You - the very people whom You have created. Restore us to yourself, LORD, that we may return. Renew our days as of old unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.
Verse for meditation: Luke 15:11-31
