Today's Devotional

January 26, 2005

Subject:  In Search Of A Father

Psalms 119:10 - "With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments."

While composing this week's devotionals, I decided to take a break.  When I did, I turned on the TV.  The Simpson's television show was on and the subject matter was amazing.  I had already devised my topic relating to The Father and as "coincidence" would have it, that was the topic.  On the show, Bart, the son in the family, has a school bully who does that to him often.  The show's point on this night was to illustrate why Nelson, the bully, acts the way that he does.  

Marge Simpson, the mother, happened to be out one day and noticed Nelson eating out of a public fountain.  Yea that was pretty nasty.  She decided to take him in and give him something to eat and paid him to perform odd-jobs around her house.  She even explained to him how he didn't have to berate others to gain acceptance.  It made him feel awkward, but he knew what she meant.  One day when Marge was dropping Nelson off at his house, Marge saw the problem.  His mom was surprised that he was home expecting that he was "sleeping in the park tonight."  Marge asked Nelson about his father and Nelson began to sob as he said, "he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back."  

Nelson's story is one that is all too common in our nation and in the world.  Whether it is physical absence or emotional absence, many of us today are in search of a father.  If we don't know him, then we innately search for significance and acceptance by him.  

In one of the final scenes on the show, Nelson, while spending the night at the Simpson's wakes up in the middle of the night and gets on his knees before the window looking skyward and crying out in a song for his father.  Eventually Bart tracks down his father and has him show up at the house to reclaim his son.  

At times we have been distanced likewise from our Heavenly Father.  It's not because He left or went anywhere.  It's because we left in our prodigal nature.  All of the wandering from His commandments are directly related to our estrangement from Him.  The final answer to resolve this separation is to do what Nelson did.  We need to get on our knees and ask Him back into our lives, because while we're searching for a father, The Father is already searching for us.

Carlen