He Is So Proud of You!
February 6, 2015
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 do not paint or write poetry. I do not know how to build anything with my hands, fix the car or grow a garden. All the houseplants 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 have accepted what I have offered and you do not give up but keep trying again and again. That is so great! Do you know how proud it makes me feel that you want me? Do you know how much it means to me to see the hours you spend trying to learn more about me – your singing, praying, sitting quietly just to be with me. Do you know how proud it makes me feel that you 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. I know that you are not where you feel that you need to be for me to love and accept you. But I still love you. And I am proud of you!”
We may not know how to handle the love and pride of a father for whom we do not have to do anything. If you were fortunate enough to grow up in a home with loving parents, then you know that from the time you were born, they were proud of you. Proud of your first steps. Proud of 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 did not 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. And our Lord loves us even more than our parents.
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! Why can’t you be like my friends’ parents who don’t care what they do?” He was actually frustrated because no matter what he did we never stopped loving him. That love was causing him guilt and frustration because it would have been much easier for him to rebel if we had simply rejected him. But we could not do that, and that love eventually paid off.
Your Father God 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 is not what you do but, rather, what you are. You are His. Believe it, accept it and live in the glorious freedom of it!