It’s another Sunday at church. You’re moving right along and tracking with the message when all of a sudden you feel like you’re hanging upside down. Confused. Worried. Helpless. Feeling hopeless.
Caught in a booby trap, or so you feel, you just heard the preacher refer to God (once again) as Father. But this time is different, for he just read from Galatians 4:6 where the apostle Paul says that Christ has sent the Spirit into our hearts crying “Abba! Father!” He proceeds to tell you that Abba has even more intimate of a meaning than Father and that it would be more accurate to say, Daddy or Papa.
For many people in the church, this is an exciting reality of their relationship with God. They are encouraged by the words and they are reminded of God’s love for them.
Stuck in a Booby Trap
For many of you, though, calling God your Father is tremendously hard. Calling God your Daddy is pretty much impossible.
Because of the relationship or lack thereof with your earthly father, every time you think of God as your Father, your ‘Daddy’, it’s as if you stepped on a booby trap and are hanging upside down with a rope tied around your ankle.
You’re stuck. You’re upside down. You’re discouraged.
You’re wondering whether or not God as ‘Dad’ is a good thing or not. Because everything in you and everything about you has been defined by the fact that your dad wasn’t loving to you.
You have a hard time accepting the fact that your Heavenly Father has declared, I love you! Because you’ve never heard your dad say those words to you.
You have a hard time believing that your Heavenly Father will never leave you or forsake you because your earthly father left you at a young age and he is nowhere to be found.
You have a hard time believing that your Heavenly Father has the best intentions in mind for you because your earthly father abused you in ways that you’ve never talked about or admitted to another person.
You have a hard time believing that your Heavenly Father has accepted you without you performing for Him because your earthly father was consumed with you becoming a better ball player, a better student, and a better person. You have strived and strived your hardest to satisfy him and make him happy and to hear him say good job, Johnny.
When God becomes Daddy, a stumbling block is created for many, because for too many kids and adults in this world, the image of a father has been stripped away from them. It has been destroyed. It has been replaced with the overwhelming feeling of shame, guilt, anger, sadness, depression, you name it.
If This is You
If you resonate with feeling like you’re in a booby trap when thinking of God as Daddy, I am so deeply sorry. I know that the scars of your past are deep. They have become part of your identity.
No matter how aloof, harmful, and hard to please your earthly father was or has been, I want you to know that your Heavenly Father loves you deeply. He desires to be with you. He wants the best for you. He is pleased with you because you are His.
When Jesus took over your life, you were changed from being a slave to doing your best into being a son/daughter of God. Your Papa looks at you and declares, “You are mine! I’m so thankful you are mine!”
Whenever you try to convince yourself that you have to earn the acceptance of your Heavenly Daddy, just remember how far He went to rescue and redeem you. The cross of Christ was the lengths that God went to restore your relationship with Him. He did it so that He could be with you – His son/daughter.
When you are in Christ, you are a son/daughter of God Almighty. You get to not only enjoy salvation through Jesus Christ, but you get to call the Creator of the Universe, Daddy.
How crazy awesome is that?!
This content comes from something I had planned on sharing in my latest sermon at the time of this writing, but couldn’t due to time. To see the message this would have been included in, see below.
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