When our children are in their formative years they need us. During these years good parents train their children to become independent, self-sufficient, adults. It may sound strange to some parents but we need to make ourselves unnecessary in the lives of our children.

Some parents have blessed their children with loans to help them buy homes or start a business. Many parents, in their wills, have left their assets to their children. Such thoughtful acts are appropriate but not really necessary if the children have been well trained at home and are capable of earning their own way in life.

On the other hand, parents of fully independent grown children, find it tremendously satisfying when they feel wanted but not needed. It is wonderfully heartwarming when parents are contacted regularly by their grown children and invited to their homes on special occasions. Being wanted rather than needed has its own great pleasure.

When it comes to our relationship to our Father in heaven, we both need and want Him. While on His part, He wants us but does not need us. Prior to our conversion we had nothing to commend us to our Creator. His love is free and eternal.

My God, how wonderful thou art,
Thy majesty how bright,
How beautiful thy mercy-seat,
In depths of burning light!
How dread are thine eternal years,
O everlasting Lord,
By prostrate spirits day and night
Incessantly adored!
How wonderful, how beautiful,
The sight of thee must be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power,
And aweful purity!
O, how I fear thee, living God,
With deepest, tenderest fears,
And worship thee with trembling hope,
And penitential tears!
Yet I may love thee too, O Lord,
Almighty as thou art,
For thou hast stooped to ask of me
The love of my poor heart.
No earthly father loves like thee,
No mother, e'er so mild,
Bears and forbears as thou hast done
With me thy sinful child.
Father of Jesus, love's reward,
What rapture will it be
Prostrate before thy throne to lie,
And gaze and gaze on thee.

-Frederick William Faber