Brats?

Have you ever spotted spoiled brats?  The cereal aisle at your local Wal-Mart is their natural habitat.  The parental choice of healthy over sugary brings out their rage, hissing and showing of teeth, their violence revealing their savage hearts.

What happens when a child receives everything that he / she wants at exactly the moment that they want it?  What happens when the need for care and provision is replaced by a sense of rights and privileges?  What would happen to you if God, your Father, gave you everything you desired at the push of His button?  Brats are the most miserable humans in the world.

In response to their pleading, Jesus taught His disciples to pray.  They must have witnessed the richness of His relationship with the Father and desired the same intimacy.

Immediately following His model, the “Lord’s Prayer”, He shared the short parable of the persistent friend (Luke 11).  Who knew that impertinence was a valuable characteristic in the Kingdom of God?

God is not asleep and he is not reluctant to provide for your needs, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.  He is, however, more concerned with the maturity of your character than with the realization of momentary comfort or pleasure. 

He will most certainly answer prayer and come and inhabit the human heart with His supernatural presence.  What could be more important or more necessary?  What could possibly express more clearly the love and compassion of our Father? 

 "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

So, the attitude of prayer is very important.  God is my Father.  He longs to provide that which I really need.  He longs to see me grow and mature.  He also longs for intimacy and knows that He alone can fulfill our deepest longings.  So, He values impertinence, the type of insistence that will knock the door down desperate to know Him more intimately. 

He is our Father.  We can be “bold” in His presence.  We can express our hearts, our confusion and our desires knowing that He accepts us completely.

But, He is a loving and wise Father, who knows better than to spoil His children and so for many answers we wait….growing and maturing, becoming the children who not only know their Father, but honor Him through the character molding and revealing moments of every day.