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Daddy likes me doing it



Last week I was chatting to someone about her young grand-daughter who has just started school, and she spoke with real pride about the child’s fearlessness… she had always enjoyed throwing herself headlong into the water at swimming… but more recently, on her first day at a gymnastics class she had scampered like a monkey up the climbing frame before launching herself into mid-air and landing flat on the big crash mat with a smile a mile wide…
Her mother’s mind was overcome with terror, watching her baby risking life and limb, but when Granny asked her grand-daughter why she enjoyed doing it so much the young girl said “Because Daddy likes me doing it!”
Apparently her Dad had always taken her swimming and being a strong swimmer himself, he had encouraged her to launch out into the deep, knowing that whatever happened he could keep her safe… His pride at her achievements was transparent, and so when she started gymnastics, her confidence in the water transferred to confidence on the apparatus… She knew that her bravery in the water pleased her dad… so she assumed that her bravery on the wall-bars would do the same… Its not that she was doing it to earn her dad's love or appreciation... he wasn't even there at the time, but the sense of safety and love that her father had showed her in the swimming pool had shaped her for other areas of life.
What a difference it makes when we know that we are loved and secure...
What a privilege it is to love and be loved...
In the same setting where I chatted with this lady about her grand-daughter (and by the way she gave me her permission to use the story) I speak far too often with people who have never known love and security... or for one reason or another have had it stripped away...
So much of what they do is then shaped by that lack of love... either seeking it wherever they can or collapsing in on themselves in bitterness or self-blame.
Whilst in each case like that which I come across I would love to wave a magic wand to enable them to feel the love and security that can come from healthy human interactions, what I can do is assure them that no-matter how often human love may let us down, our heavenly Father never will.
As the Psalmist reminds us repeatedly "His love endures forever."
We don't need to earn it. It isn't dependent on what we do, because God is love.
And in that love we can feel eternally secure...

(An adaptation of this morning's Just a Moment on Downtown Radio)









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