A Daddy's Love

I loved this letter from Pastor Matt Chandler of the Village Church to his 6 year old daughter on her birthday:

http://hv.thevillagechurch.net/blog/hvpastor/

Audrey,

Happy 6th Birthday Boo! What a great year we were given. Mom and I were talking about how it seems like yesterday that we were driving you home from Arlington Medical Center. You were so small and fragile. It’s hard to believe that that baby is the same energetic, beautiful, front tooth missing little girl that now roams our home. I continue to be overwhelmed with gratitude to the great God of heaven and earth for the gift you are to me and our family. I love how you question everything. I love how much you like to laugh and dance and sing and play. I love the quick mind and generous heart Jesus has given you. You have a tremendous sense of humor and your mom’s gentle beauty. I love that you want to travel with daddy and like that I am a preacher. That you are and that you have been given to me for a season by God to love and protect is one of the greatest joys of my 34 years of life.
I wanted to let you know again what my deepest hope is for you. They have not changed. I don’t know that they ever will. This paragraph will probably be in all of your birthday letters. My hope is not built around your safety or even your well-being, although I do beg God for those things. Instead my deep and abiding hope for you is that Jesus would reveal His infinite worth to you. You and I and everyone else have something broken deep inside of us. We are rebellious and wicked in the sight of God and no matter how hard we try we can’t fix that, trying to fix it just makes it worse. Here’s the good news Boo…God fixed it for us for His glory. Jesus (God in the flesh) came and died on the cross taking our wickedness and rebellion and giving to those who believe and repent His perfection. How amazing is that! I want you to see this, know this, walk in this, that you would marvel at His glory and be captivated by His beauty. That you might say like King David in Psalm 27 “One thing I ask and all that I desire is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His temple”. I pray that God would spare you from a thousand shallow trivialities, the air of the modern world, and allow you to breathe the deep waters of knowing and walking with Him. This is my prayer to Jesus. He will need to help you with this. I cannot. I will love you and teach you, but Jesus has to open your eyes and ears. I am confident and hopeful that He will.
I know that you might not understand parts of this letter today but one day you will. Know that your Daddy loves you very, very much, that he cries out to God on your behalf daily and sometimes more often than that. My ears and heart are always here for you.

Love,
Daddy