[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Alice Carter. I love devotionals that illustrate God in the fatherly sense!]

When I was a little girl, I think I must have spent at least half of my time in the local park. It certainly felt that way.
There is one time that particularly stands out in my mind: I was stood at the top of the slide, ready to go down. Just like I had done so many times before. When out of nowhere my dad shouted. “Stop don’t go down the slide.”
Why wold my dad tell me to not go down the slide. I had been down it so many times before. Surely there was no point in listening to him.
“Stop, Alice.”
Why would he not want me to go down the slide? Going down the slide was fun. If he loved me he would want me to have fun, wouldn’t he? And besides I had done it so many times before.
“Don’t go down the slide!”
I can be quite stubborn, so I went down the slide, despite my dad yelling at me not to. What I didn’t realise was that the little girl who had gone down the slide before me had actually peed herself on the way down. Now the slide was covered in her urine… and so was I.

I should have listened to my dad.

Looking back at this I know realise that there are a few things I could learn about my heavenly father from this incident with my earthly father.
Sometimes God will tell us to do things that we don’t understand.
What seems like a good idea to us, might not be such a good idea to him. But he has the whole picture, he knows the future and he knows what is best for us. After all going down the slide seemed like an excellent idea to me, I just didn’t have the full picture. God knows when our brilliant ideas will lead to pain, and he really does want to protect us from that.
If we don’t listen to God we will end up in a mess.
My disobedience to my dad led to me being covered in urine. Our disobedience of God will always have consequences. We might not see it straight away, but they will reach us eventually. Don’t be stubborn, like me, listen to God, unless you want to end up like me.
When we disobey God, it is sin. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. And all sin leads to mess!

God will not leave us in a mess.

After this happened my dad didn’t stand there laughing at me. He loved me, he took me home and cleaned me up. He never made me feel bad about it. When we do something wrong, if we say sorry to God, he will forgive us. He will make it like it had never happened.

Alice Carter is Devotional Diva’s social media intern. After completing a degree in applied theology at moorlands theological college and then working at a church as a children’s and family worker, Alice married the man of her dreams. They are currently living in the East End of London. Alice loves to crochet, read, bake and blog atwww.cherrydropprincess.com — she would love for you to check it out!