All of the Nicklebees awoke to another day again. That’s pretty convenient most days. [Ack!! Edited to add: I mean that some days it's inconvenient to wake up when I'd really rather sleep through the day, not that I think that it's inconvenient for someone else in the house to awaken yet again!!]
Dub awoke early this morning to the sensation of hives forming around his eyes and elsewhere on his face. I wonder if we’ll ever figure out what causes that. He seems to get hives at random and they seem to cover his whole body so quickly that I need I need to give him something, this morning it was Benadryl, post-haste.
I was just reading Psalm 107 this morning and thought it was curious that people think that the God of the Old Testament was so unloving. I suppose He is as unloving as the parent who will allow her child to make his own decisions and suffer the consequences of acting on foolishness. And yet God, when His children cried out for help, rescued them. Yes, He disciplined them but when, by their own wickedness, they got themselves in trouble, He always heard them when they turned from the ways and cried out for His help. Even though He met their every need, they turned to other gods. Even though they worshiped false gods, when they repented and turned to Him for help, He heard them and saved them from calamities of their own making.
1 John 3:1a
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
The last few days, I’ve been thinking along these lines — regarding your comment on God’s love.
This morning, it just so happened that the story today (out of Egermeier’s Bible Story Book) was on Korah’s rebellion — where there was a rebellion against Moses’ leadership, and the earth opened up and swallowed some, and fire burned the rest. We contrasted the results of that with how the prodigal son was received in Jesus’ parable. The biggest difference is a contrite, humble heart. Contriteness and humility just don’t “go over” well in our culture today, but maybe they never have. God’s love is unconditional, but His response to our behavior is very often determined by our response to Him, His love, and His correction. We want all the love, and none of the correction… The longer I have kids, the better I understand the character of God. There are so many parallels between our relationship w/ God, and our kids’ relationship with us, and vice versa.
I have to wonder if the reason for their rebellion had more to do with impatience than unbelief, or even not really hearing Him correctly. Perhaps they felt like me…I know God CAN take care of me, but sometimes I have a hard time understanding how He WILL take care of me. During those times of uncertainty I step out of His will because I am not really listening to Him closely enough, and I make a wrong move.
Poor Dub! I pray it can someday be figured out so he doesn’t have to suffer for a lifetime…now see, it’s this kind of situation that clouds my hearing of what God is trying to tell me…that’s when I make a wrong move. I’d like to say I’m getting better about actually hearing what He says, but I’m not so sure of that today. *sigh*