The Father

The process of God empowering us as he calls us is like a father helping his young son learn a trade skill, like carpentry. The son’s hands are moving the tools and working the wood and learning the steps necessary to craft, shape, and build. Yet the father’s knowledge is driving the work and, ultimately, it is his greater vision that can see the pitfalls to be avoided and the corrections to be made. The father is orchestrating the event, always guiding, always empowering, always leading the son. And the son is working, not so much to create like his father but to be like his father. It is not about the destination where the son arrives, which is the creation of a beautiful product. Rather, it’s about the journey the son undertakes, through his father’s direction, that shapes him. He aims to replicate his father, not his father’s creations. It is much the same in our relationship with the Father. We desire to do as he does, speak as he does, love as he does. But in the end, these are simply actions that express his being. They will not truly manifest until we become like him, instead of merely imitating him.