Daily Devotion

March 23, 2006

Psa 119:94 KJV  I am thine, save me; for I have sought thy precepts.

My wife and I are adopting a teenage foster daughter.  We want to shower her with our love and attention and treat her just as we have our other children, with no regards of her already late age and different biological descent.  Along with being a teenager in the twenty-first century, she has had to bite the raw and bitter end of a difficult life for many years which all contributed in creating an independent, willful, untrusting and cynical person, at times difficult to work with.  

Last night we had a discussion about trust and privileges.  I asked her how she could expect me to bless her with my trust, when she doesn’t bless me with her trust in my parental guidance concerning certain entertainment activities.  I told her that we adopt her as a daughter, but asked if she adopted us as parents?  

How much like our relationship with the Lord at times.  We indignantly accuse Him of being an unfaithful “parent” when all the while our adoption is one-sided; He gives us all of His heart, has already paid the price of our adoption, and we, in our stubborn human nature, take the blessing of adoption praying “Our Father” while we continue living as if we were orphans.

At one point she said, “You have adopted me in your heart; I am your daughter now, you care for me, and I am going to have to learn to trust this new world where people care for me!”  In a case of a parental relationship, the child is expected to trust parents about very personal things--these include free-time activities, friends, clothing, lifestyles, and goals.  Can God expect our trust in Him for the same things, and in the same way  that we expect our teenagers to trust us?  Do we say to God, “I am yours and I’m going to learn to trust your judgment” in the same way that we expect it of our teenagers?

Have you consecrated yourself to Him and Him only so you can in earnest full confidence claim His protection? Next time you are desperate and you need His help, ask yourself if you can sincerely tell the Lord, “I am thine, save me?”

Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Patrick Lumbroso
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http://hearthstoneministries.blogspot.com/