Thought of the Day 06.09.08

One of the amazing blessings of fatherhood has been the experience of doing things for my children which give me the sense of doing as God does toward me. This brings me the joy of feeling as He feels, the camaraderie of common purpose with Him, and a greater understanding and appreciation of Him as my Father. Yet surprisingly, most of these things are quite small.

For instance, when my family was away recently, I happened to notice a dime sitting in the grout crack of our garage floor. As I bent over to pick it up, the thought occurred to me that Spencer would get far greater joy out of finding this dime than I would. So I left it there in anticipation of the day he would find it for himself. Then, just yesterday, having forgotten the incident, I spied the dime again and went to pick it up again before I remembered my crafty plan to give my son joy. So I returned the dime yet again.

He still hasn’t found it, but this miniscule act of restraint gave me some perspective about why God might sometimes choose to let us do a wide variety of things for ourselves such as solving problems, overcoming obstacles, and helping other people. He’s just leaving dimes in the grout cracks of life for us to enjoy picking up.