A Child Of Laughter

A Child of Laughter

He who touches you touches the apple of his eye. Zechariah 2:8, ESV

IF YOU’RE LIKE MOST CHRISTIANS, you’ve experienced your fair share of difficulties in the life of faith. You may be accustomed to desperate prayers for help and pleas for change. Perhaps you’ve wondered how God sees you—if he really does delight in you, like certain biblical passages suggest, or if you’re his problem child, as your conscience has tried to tell you. Sadly, the “problem child” syndrome is far too common among well-meaning believers. Many of us have a hard time seeing ourselves as the apple of God’s eye.

Isaac was named the “son of laughter” because of the absurdity of Abraham and Sarah having a child in old age. The improbability of his birth made the fulfillment of the promise all the more joyful and worth celebrating. But we, too, are improbable children of God, his children of laughter, absurdly adopted into the divine family through no merit of our own but simply in fulfillment of a promise. God chose us before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), not because we were deemed worthy but because he wanted to. His love compelled him. He delighted in us before we were ever born. He knew about our faults and struggles in advance and chose us anyway. He welcomes us with open arms. He sings over us with delight (Zephaniah 3:17). No wonder John could marvel over the amazing love God has for his children (1 John 3:1). It’s beautiful and unending.

You can’t pray with much confidence if you don’t believe this. No matter how uncomfortable you may be under the gaze of unbridled, overwhelming affection—many people do find it quite unsettling—you’ll have to get used to it. Your Beloved adores you, delights in you, and invites you into his arms. If that doesn’t change the tone of your prayers, nothing will. It gives you the freedom to pray your heart’s desires, release those desires to him in trust, and know that he will make something wonderful of them. That expectation colors your faith brilliantly and makes any wait between the ask and the answer agreeable. No one doubts a promise born of this kind of love. It makes your faith burn brightly.

God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.