All Wound Up

L

ike father, like son!  So the saying goes and I’ll have to agree that I see more and more of my dad in me the older I grow.  Friday evening I arrived home from work and entered the house. The first thing that captured my attention was the fact that my clock was not ticking.  This would be of no great import in and of itself had I not grown up in a house filled with clocks that my dad loved to wind.

I can still see my dad as he made the rounds through all the rooms in our home.  He started in the living room with the grandmother clock, made his way to the front hall, then into the room my brother and I shared, next he wound the clock in my sister’s room, and finally he wound the one hanging in his and mom’s bedroom.  I have fond memories of sitting at the supper table when all the clocks would go off at the same time chiming and clanging the hour.  It was quite a cacophony of sound.

But the most wonderful part of owning so many clocks was the constant ticking heard throughout our home.  The constant rhythmic sound of the pendulums swinging back and forth sweeping out the minutes and the hours is a part of my childhood I will always remember.  In fact, as I write this Tidbit, the clock mom and dad gave me over twenty years ago is softly ticking away in my living room.  It is the first sound I hear in the morning and the last sound falling on my ear as I drift off into sweet and comforting sleep.  The ticking of the clock is a reminder of my dad’s faithfulness in keeping the clocks running and in making sure we had everything we needed at home.

Moses reminds us of God’s faithfulness when he writes the following words in Deuteronomy 7:9, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.”  Moses wants there to be no doubt in the minds of those crossing over into the Promised Land that God will be faithful in fulfilling the promise he made to Abraham so many years earlier.  God’s promise that Abraham’s seed would possess the land he swore on oath to Abraham would be fulfilled and God would continue to manifest his faithfulness by fulfilling every one of his promises.

Today, we are still the heirs of God’s faithfulness to his word.  God promised Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed through his offspring.  Jesus Christ was a descendant of Abraham and all nations of the world have been and continue to be blessed because of him today.  God’s faithfulness to us is continually manifested by the beating of our hearts, by the filing of our lungs, and by the provision of all of life’s necessities.  There is not a situation we face or a need we have but that God knows it and is working to address it in accordance with his will.  All we need do is trust and obey him as he leads us.  There is no path too difficult, no water too deep, and no mountain too high that God will not faithfully demonstrate his love, his mercy, and his grace toward us.

In a few minutes, the clock in the living room will strike the hour.  Once again I will be reminded of my dad’s faithfulness as he made the rounds in our home.  His attention to the clocks was only a symbol of the attention, dedication, and love he had for all of us.  How much more then will God attend to us?  How much more value do we have to him than a clock has to its owner?  We are the apple of his eye and the reason he sent Jesus Christ to pay sin’s penalty.  Do you hear the clock of your life ticking? Have you thanked God today for keeping it wound?