Whether you’ve had children or not, you’ve been one.
So you understand that childhood call of “Wait for me!” as you see your Dad, (or Mum), heading off to do something and you want to go too, so you can help.

I remember my daughter was only 4 or 5 years old, but she was out in the yard of the house we just built, with her little wheelbarrow, helping Dad clean up the yard and get it ready for planting a lawn.

I was recently practising Japanese and I read an article in Japanese Our Daily Bread, (also in English), about a boy who saw his Dad heading off with his chainsaw to cut trees in the forest, so he grabbed his own toy chainsaw and called out “Wait for me Dad!” as he raced after Dad to help him cut trees.
Of course Dad was thrilled, and set him up in a safe spot nearby and let him “play” at cutting trees and feeling like he was helping his dad.

I’m sure many of us as Christians have felt that urge too. As we suddenly realise that our Father, Yahweh, is working something amazing right in front of our eyes, and something inside us bursts out and we are desperate to be part of that great thing that we see happening. But in reality, compared with God’s efforts, whatever we contribute is really like we’re chopping trees with a toy chainsaw, while he does the real work.
We come home at night feeling like we helped him today, but really we were just a child playing at helping, and he was doing all the real work.
But that isn’t to be negative - our father, and our Father, are both overwhelmingly happy that we did.

God doesn’t love us because we help him actually work. He loves us because we’re his child, and he is so delighted that we want to be near him while he works, and because we want to feel like we’re part of it, even if we’re actually just playing.

We don’t have to earn God’s love. We have it already.

So grab your toy chainsaw, and call out. “Wait for me Dad!”.
You’ll make his day.