Our personal daddy picture does much to shape us. A loving father – optimism about life. An absent dad – a life of second guessing. A bad dad – nightmares over identity. Yet God wants to reveal Perfect Father to every soul.
Jesus & His Dad
I wrote a book awhile back titled Mentored by God: Finding Our Way in a Darkening World. You can locate it in electronic or printed form at Fourthstream.com on the home page. You may find it informative – perhaps even helpful. It recounts the Bible’s story about the eternal relationship of the Father and the Son alongside Lady Wisdom from Proverbs. The God Family.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” – John 14:18
I loved my own father. Yet to the day he died I never heard the words “I love you” cross his lips. Though this was tough on me, fortunately for me (and the people I love), my relationship with my heavenly Father was ramping up. What I couldn’t count on from my own dad, I began to receive from my heavenly Father.
In my unfolding years of spiritual growth, I found I was becoming more and more equipped to communicate love to my own dad. It really was supernatural. I could have been bitter because he was an angry guy and had passed the pissed off gene to me. But as I settled into God’s perfect love, the door opened to loving and forgiving my own father.
After speaking with my mom and grandmothers, it dawned on me one day that my father had done the best he knew how. His life was difficult in the verbal and expressed love category. Though I never heard the words ‘I love you’ from my dad, he heard them from me over many years, and I think he actually came to believe it.
Fortunately, our three kids and grands definitely got an upgrade on verbal heart-love.
√ So, secure love gives us life traction. Define the traction you received via your dad.
√ In what ways has your daddy picture caused you suffering?
√ What are the things you know about God’s perfect fatherhood?
√ In what ways do you feel you need more Father traction?
This is a very sensitive subject for many. For others it is incomplete. Still others have found what is lacking in earthly fatherhood to be made up for in their Heavenly Father.
It requires courage to pursue this kind of traction. It is a life-long quest!
Walking here with you,
Dave and Burnadette
Helpful related links:
Talking With the Father
Fathers & Sons
Mentored by God Book