My family and I have been avid four-wheeling enthusiasts for the better part of 12 years.
So much so that my two children began riding as young as 5 years old. My son, 16 years old when writing this blog, is the leader of the pack most rides. He is confident, inquisitive, and wants to be the first one to the mud hole. My daughter, 13 yrs. old when writing, loves to ride as well and will follow her big brother anywhere. Today was one of those days…
We were riding on a familiar trail, and she was following him close behind as she has for the last 8 years of her life. He would never lead her into danger. Today, however, she was not riding her normal quad but riding one that was set up a bit differently. Not completely unfamiliar but different than what she rides normally. Today she was riding a quad in which she had to manually shift gears. So, following her brother into a mud hole was no different than the hundred in which she had navigated in her short life let alone one of the many she had already enjoyed this day. Going into the mud she navigated her ride like a pro however, when coming out the other side, the slope of this assent was particularly steep. So much so that the quad did not have momentum to ride out. Thinking she was actually stuck in the mud my daughter gave it all she could battling the "mud" by accelerating and shaking her machine determined to get it out of the conundrum all while my wife and I were watching this fierce battle.
All of a sudden, she stopped fighting, stopped struggling, and just stopped trying. She looked over at me and said "Daddy, help"…
Now, the next moments could have gone a few different ways. I could have been frustrated at her and shouted something like, "you know how to do this why did you give up?" or "what were you thinking driving into that mud?" However, these questions weren’t really a solution to her current problem, were they? This wasn’t going to increase her motivation to "get out" but only frustrate her more as to why she couldn’t do it. Also, when your beautiful 13-year-old princess looks at you with those blue eyes and says, "Daddy help" in such innocence you lovingly oblige as quickly as possible. So that’s what I did, I slowly rode up next to her and said, down shift peanut, I know you’re not as familiar with what gear you need to be in, but you need to go lower to pull out of the incline. And that’s just what she did, she downshifted just one gear and slowly, without effort, climbed out of the mud. She wasn’t stuck in the muck at all, just simply could not produce the torque in the higher gear to get out.
As I rode the rest of the day I thought about this situation and how familiar it is to the way I often approach challenges as a leader. I go full bore into a "muddy" situation thinking I've done this a million times and I can do it again and I don’t need anyone to help. However, sometimes I get stuck. Sometimes I just can't figure it out no matter how determined I am or how hard I fight, I just can't do it… without help. Help that can often be as simple as looking up and saying "Daddy, please help"
God desires us to call him our Father.
He even challenges us to pray "Our Father, who art in Heaven" and to make him our Abba Father. God is referred to as "our Father" 13 times in the Old Testament and Jesus’ frequent use of this title brought a whole new understanding of our relationship with God. Jesus himself spoke of God as being our Father 30 times! So why do we so easily forget that he is there for us? He is our Father to cry out to. Just as my daughter cried out Daddy help so are we to cry out to God for help. Like my calm reaction to my daughter, God always has that reaction of patient love. He could look at me and say, you idiot, or, why did you do it that way. But that’s not who our God, our “Daddy” is. While we may feel uncomfortable calling God our Daddy, and to some it may be considered disrespectful, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that is exactly the relationship God wants with us. To be our DAD, that comforting picture you may have in your head when you think about the perfect father, one who is warm and loving tossing the old baseball out back in the yard. Hold on to that picture because that is exactly who our perfect, heavenly father is. Our Daddy!
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