Of Loft-beds and Worship
I recently built Kylie (my Daughter) a loft-bed for her room. Her room isn’t real big so the idea of having her bed up high and space underneath it for other things really made her excited. To tell you the truth, I was surprised at how excited she was about the project. The overall plan also included her mother painting the room and adding a very cool hand painted border.
I began the project in the garage as I designed (kind of as I went) the bed and started the construction. I cut and assembled a few pieces while Kylie was away and when she came home she saw that I had finally begun and thanked me for it. Although I think that my 12 year old is pretty cool, 12 year olds in general are not always up for being real appreciative of what their parents do.
An interesting thing happened over the next four days (remember, I’m an airline pilot - it takes me awhile to build a bed) in that every time I turned around, Kylie was praising me for my work. I got lots of hugs and kudos for a job well done. She told me that she knew I could have been doing other things instead and thanked me for taking the time to work on her project. It made me feel good while I was pouring blood and sweat into this thing to have her telling me thank you - it made me feel really good.
I’ve always found that looking at Jesus in a “daddy” way has made it easier for me to understand His love (not that I’ll ever understand it but you get the point). It dawned on me during this loft-bed building that the way I felt receiving Kylie’s praises might be on a small scale analogous to how Jesus feels when I take time to praise and worship Him. Just as most kids don’t really thank their parents enough for hard work and sacrifice, I don’t thank my Savior enough for hard work and the ultimate sacrifice.
Participating in Worship has always been a real joy for me. I find myself most connected with the Lord while I’m singing His praises and worshiping Him. Guess what? I felt close to my daughter while I was working and she was “praising” me - what a concept.
I don’t really know how to finish this out. Suffice it to say that God was at work teaching me while I acted like a carpenter. Teaching me about another carpenter and how He feels when I tell Him thank you for taking the time when you could have been doing a hundred other things.
— Taye Dec 5, 03:50 AM #