Advent Day 10: Everlasting Father

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.” (Matthew 7:9–11 NLT)

When Rick Hoyt was 15, he told his father that he wanted to participate in a benefit run for an athlete who had been paralyzed. The biggest obstacle to this was that Rick was also unable to walk, having been born quadriplegic due to cerebral palsy. His father, Dick, agreed to run the race while pushing Rick in his wheelchair for the entire five miles. Afterward, Rick told his dad that he didn’t feel handicapped when he was running, so the pair began running more races. For the past forty years, they have run more than 1,100 races together, including triathlons and marathons, as well as biked/run across the entire United States. This is fatherly love on display; Dick sought the best for his son, even if that included running hundreds of thousands of miles to help him feel more able-bodied. How much more is God’s love for us!

As Scripture says, “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us” (John 1:18). Jesus is God the Father revealed to us, giving us a fuller understanding of the divine. Through the Son we are able to discover just how perfectly good and perfectly loving the Father is.

Read Psalm 103 and take note of the actions and characteristics of God that reverberate in your soul. Use those verses to sing a song of praise to your heavenly Father.

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