One day after I came home from a long trip, my youngest daughter came in from school and plopped on the floor to play with her Barbie dolls. I was tired, but I really wanted her to bless me with the kind of little girl’s pampering I’d looked forward to for several days. I wanted to hear something like, “Hi, how are you, Daddy? Am I glad you’re home! It seems like you’ve been gone a long, long time. Give me a hug, Daddy.”

Despite my best attempts to look pitiful and lonely, I was basically being ignored. It was hard for me to accept playing second fiddle to a foot-high plastic doll, but it was happening anyway. Finally I couldn’t take the suspense any longer.

“Honey,” I said, “come give Daddy a hug.” To my surprise, she calmly replied, “You know I’m nine years old now.” Unmoved, I said, “That has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.” My oldest daughter was sitting across the room at the time, so I pulled her into the struggle.

“Look at your older sister. She’s twenty years old.” Then I looked at my oldest daughter and said with a smile and an especially intense look, “Honey, come give me a hug.” Without giving away a thing, she smiled, sat in my lap, and gave me a quick hug before she whispered in my ear, “You’re going to owe me for this later.” In triumph I said, “Nine or twenty—it doesn’t matter. You are Daddy’s girls. Now come here and give me a hug.” Despite my spectacular persuasive coup, my little girl said, “I’m busy.” This called for Daddy’s version of heavy artillery. I looked closely at the Barbie dolls that had managed to steal away my daughter’s affections and said, “Do you know who gave you those Barbie dolls?” Suddenly a look of reluctant realization flickered across her face. Once it dawned on her that Daddy was the source of the Barbie dolls, she decided, I’d better give him a hug.

After gathering a Barbie in both hands, she clambered into my lap and delivered a hug and a quick peck on my cheek, all the while inadvertently stabbing me in both ears with pointy Barbie feet clutched in each hand. Then she wiggled and squirmed in an attempt to get back down and resume an intense conversation with her height-challenged doll companions.

That light peck on the cheek just didn’t make a big-enough deposit in my Daddy account. “No, no, no. Come on. Give me a big hug.” That was when she rolled those big brown eyes and said, “That’s the problem with you daddies.” “What?” I said.

“You always want too much love.” “You’re right,” I said. “I’m guilty.” Just about that time the heavenly Father spoke to my heart and said, “That’s the problem with your heavenly Father too.” That was the moment I received one of the most amazing revelations in my life.

God’s capacity for receiving worship is always greater than our ability to deliver it.

In our earthbound daily schedules, we tend to neglect one of the most powerful gifts God has given us as our heavenly Father. His desire for our worship amounts to a permanently open door to the presence of God, and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross gave us an incredible power of position that can come no other way.

Yet in our immaturity, we are content to reluctantly enter our Father’s presence for the briefest moment to deliver a quick peck on the cheek, a flash of raised hands in momentary praise, and a boisterous song in a church service. Then we say, “There, that ought to do You. See You next week.” Meanwhile, our heavenly Father feels the desire of a cosmic Daddy’s love deficit. I can almost imagine Him thinking to Himself, How can I maximize the amount of time My children spend in My lap? How can I draw them to Me (and away from their activities, possessions, and distractions) long enough to give Me more than a quick peck on the cheek?

We don’t understand that our heavenly Father has no problem supplying our needs. He owns all of the resources of the universe.

But He cannot or will not create praise and worship for Himself. He has chosen to rely on you and me and the rest of the redeemed for this rarest of commodities. That means His greatest problem is getting us to worship Him from our hearts.

Your heavenly Father has knowledge of your needs even before you ask them.3 He has been walking through the hall of time, and He eavesdrops in the doorway of your life. He has already heard your request. It is so simple: you just want your friend to be there. . . You just want this to happen . . . You want that to happen.

God’s Eyeview p. 70 – 73, Tommy Tenney, From GodChasers.network, The Ministry of Tommy Tenney

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