No matter the cost

There is something wonderful about a parent's love for their child. I am not a parent and at the moment cannot completely understand how the parent feels. But I know it from the other side as a child.
When I view God as my Father, I feel very honoured to have Him. When I try and picture God as 'The Father' I don't see a picture of anything spectacular. I see Him as my Dad, my Heavenly ABBA (means daddy in Arabic). When Jesus cries out 'ABBA, Father', He cries out for His 'Daddy'. We too can cry out to Him as 'Daddy' just like Jesus did.

I was challenged this week to 'paint' a picture of God, in anyway. When I thought about the only way I could do that is to draw it. I saw a large hand reaching down to hold a small hand and underneath it I could see a child walking along holding hands with their parent. That's how I pictured God. A Father who holds our hand, 'NO MATTER THE COST!'

At Christmas I heard J.John tell this story and it really hit me;

A bus driver went to a country school to pick up the children and drop them home. He was a very experienced and good bus driver. He had, had no accidents and knew all the winding tiny roads well. One day as usual he drove the bus to collect the children from the school.
He waited for all the children to get on the bus and made sure everyone he was taking home was there. As He drove of he was going through the roads he knows so well and had driven so many times, when he got to the steep hill. As he was driving down the hill, he realised to his horror that the breaks had failed. He was terrified but made sure that he didn't panic and that the children did not panic either. He knew the road so well, that he knew that just before the bottom was a gate to a field. He began to formulated a plan. If he could swing round into the field, the bus would naturally come to a stop and none of the children would be harmed.
Yet as he arrived at the point where he could see the gate, he saw a boy playing there. Quickly he had to make a decision, save all the children on the bus and risk running over the boy or save the boy and risk killing all the children? What was he going to do? It was such a hard decision.
Finally at the last moment he swung the bus round, through the gates and into the field. No one on the bus was hurt. When parents and people came to see what had happened, they asked the police what had happened. It was tragic the boy had died on the scene. They asked if the driver was alright and the policeman replied, 'He's very shocked. He's just ran over his own son!'
That man killed his son to save those children.
That's what God the Father has done for you.

NO MATTER THE COST!