“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.” Prov.5.15 ESV
Remember your mother telling you to go outside and play or come inside and play. Maybe it was a great day for sunshine, so she directed you to play outside. Maybe there was an approaching storm so she called you to play inside. Outside or in, her every instruction was attentive love. An immature child, may have the impression that dear old mom can’t make up her mind or that she really doesn’t want him to play at all. But of course, moms are not against pleasure or play; they are simply “for” us. Such is a good mom.
God the Father is a good mother. He too encourages us to enjoy pleasure, and to play. And, His directives for doing so, “always” flow from His attentive love. I once read a book titled Pro-existence written by Udo Middelman, the late Francis Schaffer’s son-in-law. The book helped awaken me to what should have been obvious; that God is “for” life, not “against” it. As the Creator, God not only knows the best way to the best pleasures, He is committed to our enjoyment of them. But sense life is more than play and pleasure and because He is committed to life, He looks over it all. Every time God forbids something, He is approving something else, something better. He asks us to believe this and this is of course is faith. Perhaps this is why Jesus said we must humble ourselves as children to enter the Father’s Kingdom. 8/5/2008 ts
Just me trying to be honest with God.
