May 7, 2024
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One of the more lovable guys on TV, I think, is the weatherman named Al Roker. He's even got a book about his battle with losing weight.
At one point Al was quoted as saying that he weighed in at 340 pounds at 5'8". Notice I said weighed in. That was past tense. After carrying around all those pounds for a while, one day he suddenly goes out to a gym and asked them to put him on a diet and an exercise program that will radically reduce his size. He lost 140 pounds.
And what was it that suddenly got him wanting to do something about weight that he'd carried around for a long time? His young daughter came up to him one day when he had his shirt off and she made the kind of blunt, off-the-cuff observation about how he looked that only a child can make in all innocence and get away with it. Well that was it! Hello gymnasium! Goodbye fat.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "My Child, My Mirror - When a Parent Looks Up."
Our word for today from the Word of God takes us way back to nearly the beginning of the human race to a man named Enoch. Now, God has some especially complimentary things to say about Enoch. In Genesis 5:21-24, he reveals a change that took place in this man's life that could change the course of your life too.
The Bible says, "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah." Then it says, "After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God." Now, did you notice the math here? Not just the longer life they enjoyed back then. Enoch lived the first 65 years of his life with no mention of a relationship with God.
Then suddenly he starts walking with God, and continues to have this intimate relationship with his Creator through the rest of his life. What was the catalyst that changed Enoch? The same thing that changed an overweight TV personality - his child. After he became a father, it says, is when Enoch walked with God.
There's something about having a child that makes you start thinking about yourself in ways you've never thought of yourself before. They're mirrors to us. As a dad or a mom, trying to shape this life that we've been entrusted with, we begin to see things we may have never seen fully before. Like our own incompleteness, our inadequacies, our weaknesses that can now do serious damage to this vulnerable life in our hands.
Suddenly we consider looking up as we maybe have never have done before and saying, "Help!" Well, the good news is that God stands ready to answer our cry for help big time. In fact, He may have been waiting a long time for you to finally recognize that you are incomplete. You are inadequate and you've always been in need of what only He can do for you - a Savior.
Ultimately, our children show us the real weight we've been carrying all these years. They help us see the weight of our own self-centeredness, our unresolved issues, our dark side, our sin. We can never walk with a perfect God as long as we're carrying all this. And being a mom or dad shows us like nothing else how deep our need is for this personal relationship we were made for and how much we need a rescue.
In spite of our sin, God loves us and He wants to walk with you for the rest of your life. But that walk can only begin one place - at the cross where God's one and only Son died to pay the death penalty for what you and I deserve. We did the sinning, but Jesus did the dying. The Bible says, "You who were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ."
Your walk with God begins when you say, "Jesus, I'm putting all my trust in You to be my Savior from my sin." If you've never done that, let this be the day you say, "Jesus, I'm yours." I'd love to help you begin that relationship and that's why our website is there. It's ANewStory.com.
If you're a mom or dad, there are feet now following you wherever you walk. For their sake and for yours, be sure you're walking with God.