O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens. You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. – Psalm 8:1-2
My daughter turned 9 months old this past week. I swear we just got use to finding our way around the diaper bag, the swaddle, and midnight feedings. I look now and see her standing, sleeping with Lambie, and gobbling down avocados. It is amazing how God uses children to give great revelation of Himself. God continues to give me such insight of who He is and how He loves me as I have the privilege of being a father.
Three things Brylie has taught me:
To trust God and believe He has a purpose for me.
We had 9 months to prepare for her. In that time we came to know everything we possibly could about our daughter before she was born. In the same way God has prepared for you because there has never been a point where God has not known you were coming. If we could plan and know our daughter as well as we did over the course of 9 months – there’s no way your life is a surprise to God. He knows you and has purpose for you.
To hear God’s voice even though I can’t see him.
Something I didn’t know: when infants are born they can only see about 6-12 inches from their own face for the first few weeks. Yet before she had developed her full vision Brylie had learned to recognize my voice and respond to it. I firmly believe that our hearts are tuned to hear God’s voice as a result of being created in His image. The problem is that I’ve turned up the noise in my life or allowed my heart to fall out of tune, making it much harder to recognize His voice. Our vision is so limited compared to God’s view and so it is important for us to rely less on our vision and more on our hearing.
How much God wants to form my identity.
As Brylie’s parents, Christina and I want to be the primary voices speaking to our daughter’s identity and worth. I now realize why Christ (and the whole of Scripture for that matter) speaks so strongly to what our identity as children of God should be. God as our Father doesn’t want to “control” us, He wants to raise us in HIS arms! He wants to set the rhythms of our life and His arms to be the place we’re most comfortable. He wants to tell us who we most resemble and who we are going to become.
As I reflect on these three truths I realize that so often I’m stuck in a life of mediocre, unadventurous, and sterile faith. In these moments, I see I’m not trusting, listening, or being formed by the one who knows me best. God has a life full of adventure, love, purpose, risk, and relationship that cannot be matched by anyone or anything else in this world. I pray that I will take to heart these lessons from my daughter in being a father.
Uncomfortable Middle 