When I was 16 my parents got me a car. I remember being so excited to drive to youth group and to be independent. On my way to the church, my car hydroplaned and slipped straight into a tree. I got out of the car to find the front of the passenger side smashed in with the wheel pressed up to the frame. As I got out of the car, I called home terrified. My mother answered, and told me she was sending my father. I was terrified of what my fathers response would be. Was I going to be punished, grounded till I was 18, or never drive again? My father arrived and began laugh. I couldn’t decide whether this was a “good” laugh or a “bad laugh,” so I hesitantly laughed with him. His response to the accident was, “Well better the car than you. A car can be replaced, I could never replace you son.”

Is this not like our relationship with God? When we make a mistake we are terrified of what God may think. Perhaps we are so ashamed that we don’t want him to ever know. But much like my car, there was no hiding the mistake. What we miss is that the love of God is greater than any mistake we could ever make. And every time we come before him with our mistake, our Father in Heaven’s response is simply, “I could never replace you. You are my son/daughter, and there is nothing that you could do to make me love you less.”

1 John 3:1 (NIV)

“See what Great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”