Painting pictures of Dad (Posted 10/21/2009 04:00 pm)
My kids are not the most artistic bunch, but when they were little, they would do like most kids and often make a crayon masterpieces of their dad.

Sometimes they would be thrilled to bring me what some would consider less than flattering circles with heads on them. I would pretend it was not because they saw me as fat, but because they were at some early stage of development. 

 I’m no psychologist, but I would see that the houses were always whole and so were the hearts. That was a big deal to me because so many little people in our children’s church draw pictures that would make us bawl. Kids we know with broken homes would draw half houses where the other runs off the page and you can’t see it. I supposed they couldn’t see the other half of their real houses. Or they would draw a picture of the new family and leave themselves out of the group or draw really sad suns or things like that.  

All my kids were loved and a little on the spoiled side of a family that has a really big emphasis on family. So when my youngest daughter, for example, would bring me  a picture she would often say “Look daddy, it’s you!” and she couldn’t get it into my hands quick enough. She would wait for my reaction and I would do something silly like put my hand on my chest and yell out “Good googly moogly, I want to paint that vision on the great wall of China!”

She would laugh and run off to draw something else, because she couldn’t wait to get another crazy response out of me. I miss those days.

As a Christian, I think I still do that kind of thing to my spiritual father. I give to him little moments and eventually a life I think looks like Him. When you serve God in a special way, what you do has to do with who you believe God to be. It’s what you think He looks like.

For example, if you have a revelation about how God loves you and has mercy on you, you find yourself loving other people and cutting other people slack in bad situations. You do that unto the Lord and it’s just like giving Him something that says, “It’s you daddy!”

If you have a revelation about what an awesome giver The Lord is, you will find yourself being a giver in your church or helping someone in a bad financial place. That’s you running to The Father, handing Him your service and saying, “This looks like you Daddy”.

 No fear of criticism. No fear of taking it to Him because He’s a good dad and every time you get an incredible response from The Father that makes you feel like the most loved person on the planet.

In this week’s confession of a highly-caffeinated Christian, I pour a cup with mellow flavors to sip on. Think a thought like He thinks today. Do a work like He does and more than that, be like He is in whatever challenging or amazing situation you come across. Let there be something going on between you and God which no one else in the word knows anything about. Give your life and your heart to God and say, “Look Daddy, this looks like you,”

“Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 18:2-4
Troy Brewer is pastor of Open Door Ministries. He can be reached by e-mail at troy@opendoorministries.org.