I to, this morning to turn in your Bibles to, Genesis chapter 33. Genesis chapter 33 for our time of study in the word this morning, we're actually gonna be looking at quite a number of verses, this morning. We'll be looking at verses 33, verse 18, all the way through chapter 35, verse 7, and, journeying with Jacob, on a part of his life's journey. And if you want to give a title to the message, it would be One Dad's Path.
To full surrender., It's been an interesting week for me. Every once in a while, my wife, breaks out her Creative Memories albums and just starts working on them, and she's years behind, but she'll start working on them and taking photos from the past and putting them in an album, and she'll break out all the boxes with photos in them and And whenever she's doing that, I normally like to come into the room and sift through them and relive some old memories. And so this past week, including yesterday, I found myself going through the, one of the albums that my wife had put together. I was looking at pictures of my 4 children from a decade or so ago.
And it was a bittersweet experience for me because as I looked into the faces of my children from over a decade ago, I keenly remember that time in my life, and it was a time in which my heart was not fully devoted. To the Lord as it should have been. And I just felt a sting in my heart. I loved those kids that I saw in those photos.
And I so wished that I had been a better father to them, and that my heart had been more devoted to God at that time so that I could have then been to them the dad that they needed for me to be. as I look at their pictures from years ago, I keenly am aware of the fact that I was not at that time the dad that I would be now if I could go back with what I know now and get to be their dad again at that age that I see them in the photos. And sometimes I ask God the question, why did you give me children when I still had so much growing up and maturing to do? To which God always replies, I gave you children because you needed to grow up....
