Wholeness Ministries
www.wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
He Is Proud of You!
It's difficult for us to grasp that God is proud of us. Like a father is proud of his son or daughter so our Father God is proud of us. We might rightly respond; "What is there to be proud of? I've never done anything significant. I'm not famous, I've never written a book or composed a song. I don't paint or write poetry. I don't know how to build anything with my hands, fix the car or grow a garden. All the house plants my friends give me soon die, though not for lack of trying.
What's to be proud of?" In his book "The Ragamuffin Gospel," Brennan Manning writes. "Has it crossed your mind that I am proud you accepted the gift of faith I offered you? Proud that you freely chose me, after I had chosen you, as your friend and Lord? Proud that with all your warts and wrinkles you haven't given up? Proud that you believe in me enough to try again and again." Wow, can you get a hold of this? He's looking at you through the eyes of a father looking at his child and saying, "I'm so proud of you, you've accepted what I've offered and you don't give up but keep trying again and again. That is so cool! Do you know how it makes me feel that you want me? For the hours you spend to learn more about me. Your singing, praying, sitting quietly just to be with me. Do you know how proud that makes me feel that you would want to be with me? All the things you could be doing and you chose freely to spend time with me. I know you have sins, and struggles, that you aren't where you feel you need to be for me to love and accept you. "Alas, I am sad when you do not believe that I have totally forgiven you or you feel uncomfortable approaching me." But I am still proud of you.
We may not know how to handle the love and pride of a father for whom we don't have to do anything. If you were fortunate enough to grow up in a home with loving parents, then you know, from the time you were born, they were proud of you. Proud of your first steps, or those crayon squiggles on paper that were taped up on the walls like Rembrandt paintings. Proud of you when you came running into the room to show them your latest play dough masterpiece. You knew they accepted you even when you failed again and again. You didn't have to prove anything to them. You knew that there was nothing that would keep them from loving you no matter how often you ran from them and hid in your shame and embarrassment. I remember a time when one of our sons was in the midst of serious rebellion. As his parents we could not stop him from doing those things that we knew could potentially destroy him. But we could love him. During one of those moments he screamed at us in frustration, "The problem is you love me too much!" He was actually frustrated because no matter what he did we never stopped loving him.
Your Father God loves you and is proud of you because you are His and He quite simply loves you. He understands all of your humanness. Take it into your heart and your soul, Father God is proud of you! Don't try to analyze, understand or "live up" to anything you think will make Him proud because it's not what you do but rather what you are. You are His. Believe it, accept it and live in the glorious freedom of it!
Wholeness ministries offers a weekly School of Healing Prayer, individual prayer by appointment, numerous resources on both audio and videotape as well as our book "Learning To do What Jesus Did."
For more information please contact:
Rev. Mike Evans
4301 Stine Rd. Suite H
Bakersfield CA
USA 93313
661-833-2920
Fax 661-833-2934
mevans@wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
