After a mere three weeks, I’m already going to the well of fatherhood for spiritual analogies.
Our daughter has made the transition to parenthood incredibly easy for us–she only cries when something is wrong–90% of the time it means her diaper is dirty or she’s hungry, which are also the only times I cry.
The thing is, as she’s crying and one of us is holding her and getting ready to alleviate her hunger or discomfort, she often starts sobbing uncontrollably. We’re ready to meet her needs, we know what’s wrong, but she doesn’t have the awareness yet to understand she just needs to wait a few more seconds.
“I know, sweetie. I know what you need. Your crying can’t speed up the process any more and your flailing is actually making this more difficult than it needs to be. Just trust me, I’m working on it. I’m here.”
I say those things (sometimes not so patiently, and many times, surely, she doesn’t hear me at all over her wailing) but it doesn’t help yet.
One day it will. One day she’ll have a better understanding, a greater and deeper trust. She’ll realize that she doesn’t need to cry harder or longer or louder. She just needs to trust her father and let him do what he can but she can’t at that moment.
The Father is in control. He knows what he is doing. We may cry and scream and say we can’t take it any more, but we’re in His hands and He has not left us. His job is caring for us, our job is trusting Him to care for us.
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
–Matthew 7:11
We who are evil still know how to love and care for our children. We want to give them good things, and at the very least we want to ease their pain and comfort them. How much more does the Father in heaven desire to do that for us!
Cry, sure. Make your need known. He asks us to do that. But losing control because our need hasn’t been met yet and flailing about thinking that will make it better won’t fix it.
Present the need. Call to the Father. Ask for His help. And then let Him do what only He can do.