A Perfect Father Doesn’t Vacuum up His Children

My oldest is nearly seven and she still has the irrational fear of being sucked up by our vacuum cleaner. As far as I know, nothing has ever happened to bring on this condition. But, every time I wheel it out to the living room she’ll get up (even if she’s already a safe distance away) and either scramble to the very top of the couch like her life is in danger or, more recently, just go and hide in her room. Now let me tell you something, I have a 100% success rate of not vacuuming up any of my children or anyone else’s children. Part of her just doesn’t believe she is safe in that moment and maybe this is the time she’ll disappear into the bag.

Looking back, He has been 100% faithful when it comes to caring for us.

You know who else has a 100% success rate in being faithful to His word? You see, God has never let me down. Never failed to provide for me when I lived with my parents, when I was single and living on my own, or since my own family has been in full time ministry. He has always provided friends, food, cars, laptops, plane tickets, shoes, last minute babysitters, the list goes on and on. It may not always be what I would prefer at the time in all of those areas, but it is always what I needed and what He knew was best for my family. Looking back, He has been 100% faithful when it comes to caring for us.

Yet, even with the facts laid out over and over again before me, I still doubt. I still struggle to have faith – not every time, but often enough for the same question to pop up again: “What if this time is the time it doesn’t work out?”.  How many doubts and worries rise up in those moments that cause stress, bad moods, despair, health issues, overeating, under eating, loneliness, and guilt because I am obviously not cutting it as a ‘good Christian’ when I worry?

The longer I’m alive, the more examples I have of God not letting me down…

The longer I’m alive, the more examples I have of God not letting me down and the more weight that 100% has behind it. But, if you’ve read even a little of the Old Testament you know the concept of forgetting is nothing new. One of the most famous  examples of this is the deliverance of the Israelite’s from slavery, how quickly they forgot God’s faithfulness and therefore spending the next 40 years wandering around in the desert.

WE may never fully understand God’s character in this lifetime, but there are many absolutes the Bible does teach us about our Creator. I don’t have space to list them all here, but faithfulness is one of the big ones.

…perfect Fathers don’t vacuum up their children.

So, even when we doubt, when we turn away, when we give up, He has nothing but grace, mercy, and a new start waiting. That’s what our perfect Father is like. And perfect fathers don’t vacuum up their children. We have nothing to fear as the Bible reminds us over and over again.

Hopefully, one day, my little girl’s brain cells will finally multiply in the right sequence for her fear to fade away. But, until then, that lowly machine that lives in the closet has become a physical reminder to me of God’s faithfulness and to not doubt His promises.

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