A Father’s Heart
Growing up in my household was a bliss. I had a mom and dad who loved me and encouraged me to seek God from a young age. As I began to read the Bible and search the truths it contained, I began to see God described in a pretty interesting way. I began to see that God was described as a Father, and a loving one at that. We see God first described in Exodus 34 and it’s stunning, “The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.”
This is the first description we see of God disclosing who He is in the Bible. What is God’s natural way of relating to His children? It’s showing compassion, grace, patience, and overflowing love. I don’t know any other way to say than God is and contains the love that we’ve all yearned for our whole lives. Luckily for me, this wasn’t very hard to imagine. I had a father who listened to me, knew me, cared for my heart, and assured me of his love on a daily basis. So when the Bible started talking of God being a loving father, it wasn’t that far of a stretch for me to imagine because of the love my own father showed to me. But I know this isn’t the case for everyone. Maybe you grew up in a house where seeing your dad caused you to shudder just from hearing the sound of his voice, or you grew up with a dad who was physically present but mentally somewhere else, or you grew up without a dad at all so your thought of a father is one of just being neglected and forgotten.
Most of the words shared in this will be about my experience with my dad and how his love pointed me to the one who truly cared for my soul. May these words both inspire you to know God and know a little bit more of who I am.
A TIMELY WORD
It was November 11, 2014, and little did I know that I was about to experience a moment I’d never forget. This was my junior year of high school and all cared about was one thing: making the Texas All-State Band. Everyday after school I would come home and practice music for hours on end. I would take music lessons and learn how to get better at the music I had dedicated countless hours to. I was absolutely obsessed with this one singular goal. Neither was this my first time reaching for this goal. My first two years of high school I had reached out for this exact same thing and gotten o so close. My first try, I was third place (only one person was taken per area). The following year I got second place. So my junior year, it was only inevitable that my time to shine would finally come. But if you knew me back in those days, it was obvious that while I may have been a bright kid, I would refuse to do my due diligence when it came to anything that didn’t involve music. I would try to do the bare minimum just so I could almost appease my parents and do exactly what I wanted to so I could play the music I loved with my whole heart. But eventually, this caught up to me.
On this cold November day, I was called into my band directors office and I winced when I saw my parents in the office, not out of disgust but just because it was a weird thing to see on a normal school day. My band director had started speaking and he had told me that I was ineligible to audition because I had failed a class. I instantly started to weep. The one goal I had worked on for months and had dreamed about for three years was suddenly taken away from me, all from my own doing. I ran into my dad’s arms as fast as I could and squeezed out any piece of comfort I could in his warm embrace. Once we had gotten home, my dad had sat me down at the table and began to speak over me. He began to tell stories of hard moments in his life, shared how proud he was of me for working so hard, made sure I knew that he was on my side even when I failed, and began to hug me like only a good father could.
The God of the Bible is infinitely better than the dad I’ve just described. God doesn’t falter when he sits in the dire times in your life. God doesn’t forget what you’ve gone through or the scars you swore you’d never show anyone in fear of getting hurt again. The God of the Bible is one of infinite beauty that captivates you because He is both your source of life and where you will find true rest for your soul. God’s very word is what spoke the world into existence and what will point you to the one who formed and shaped you in your mothers womb. God’s word is good even when everything else fades away. God’s word is true even when lies surround you. God’s word can be trusted even when it seems like he’s far away. God is not only good to you, but he is also good for you. Believe God because He is the one person who understands it all.