Here at Subsplash, we are all about sharing what we've been learning from God and how we can expand his Kingdom. For me, I've been learning more and more about God's love having been a dad for a little over a year now. When I first became a father, people kept asking me the big question; “How has this changed your life?”. Often times the question would come with a joke about sleep or maybe asking me if I better understood the love of God as a father. At first, I didn’t quite know how to answer the question. There is so much amazing emotion wrapped up in meeting your child for the first time. It’s just different than anything else on earth and I had nothing to compare it to.
As I began to reflect over the first few days and weeks of parenthood, this new reality began to reveal new truths about love, family, and God. How could this little person change everything and open new depths of my heart and soul? I’ve now been a father for about one year and it just keeps getting better. I would do anything for this little guy and I’m wired to protect him, serve him, comfort him, and give him my best each day. After being a dad for a while I thought to myself, what if I laid out all the things I do as a parent, but removed the fact that it was for my son? I mean, what if you just made a list of all the things we do as parents and gave the details of who we do it for, but remove the fact that it is for our child? What would that look like? Every day I have to take care of a miniature person who doesn’t speak my language, eats my food, relies on me to change his diapers several times a day, takes up my wife’s precious time and my monetary resources, can’t move and thus relies on me to carry him and then when he can move he goes where I do not want him to go, and who spits up on me at random times. If someone told me that some guy who fit that description was going to live with me, I would not have been too pumped. However, since it is my son, I don’t mind one bit and love him fully, despite the seemingly troubling additions to my life. How cool is that? A child brings so much incredible joy to your life and love just pours out toward them.
All this got me thinking, is this just a fraction of the love that God feels toward us? I believe that God loves each one of us more than I love my son, which is a whole lot. Now, if God loves us to such an incredible level and in turn wants us to not only love him but to love others, what would it look like if we started treating one another with a portion of the love we show to our children? Can you imagine the impact that would have? If I saw my son on the side of the street I would stop to help no matter what, but how often am I willing to stop and help others in need? Maybe it’s a reflection of my own selfishness, but I want and need to strive to love more. After all, there’s clearly a better way and it involves loving others as I would love myself, or in this case, love my son. And through it all I must remember that first God loved me and he gave his only son as a sacrifice that I may live! Now that is incredible. So yes, being a father has changed my life and I’m now even more thankful for the love shown to me by the God of the Universe.