In the Father’s house, we are beloved sons or daughters, and yet we often continue to act like slaves. Captain’s House, original oil painting by Steve Henderson, sold.

This weekend I enjoyed the company of three out of four of my adult children.

It is impossible for me to describe to you how much I love these four progeny of mine — whenever I talk to them, play cribbage with them, eat with them, or just spend time with them — even mentally — I delight in them.

Eldest Supreme had just washed her hair and was walking around the kitchen like a sultana with a towel around her head, bantering with the Son and Heir about the bread he was making. Tired of Being Youngest bustled in, checking on her cheesecake and ensuring that no one surreptitiously broke off a piece. From the sofa I watched in absolute delight, just loving them from across the room.

Being a misfit means you’re out of step with the majority, and it’s good to remember that the majority frequently isn’t right. Paperback and digital at amazon.com.

I delight in my children.

So does God, but in our clumsy attempts to figure Him out and please Him in ways that we do not — or should not — demand of our own children, we forget this:

To find out what we forget, please follow the link to the full story (which I am unable to reprint here in its entirety), Do You Long for the Love Christianity Promises? I know I did, and I wasn’t finding the answer in the pat answers and phrases other Christians were throwing back at me.

So I started reading Scripture for myself, as opposed to allowing others to interpret it for me, and I began to find this love. I also began to write about it in my column, Commonsense Christianity at BeliefNet. And then, when I figured out why I had never fit into contemporary church culture, I wrote The Misfit Christian, for other believers who wondered why, even though they loved and followed Jesus, they were out of the loop in the Christian establishment.

This article is linked to Modest Monday, Mama Moments, What Joy Is Mine, Mom Moments, Moms the Word, The Missional Woman, Thoughtful Spot, Motivation Monday, Time Warp Wife, Titus Tuesday, Table for Seven, Kathe with an E, Wholehearted Home, Raising Homemakers, My Daily Walk in His Grace, A Wise Woman, We Are That Family, The Life of Jennifer Dawn,