Boys and girls of all ages long for their daddy’s attention, love, and approval. Kids will do almost anything to get what they need most from dad. Striving. Competing. Performing. Acting out. Even doing things they’re not designed for just to get Daddy’s love and approval. Many dads are oblivious to the feelings and needs of their children. Their children are just an extension of them that make them look or feel good or bad. When dads are shut down, consumed with something or someone else, angry, or stuck on themselves, kids don’t have a chance to get close to their dads or feel a father’s love. When dad is associated with hurtful memories, kids don’t want to go back home. If dad was never there or if he abandoned the family, boys and girls can still be striving in adulthood searching for a father’s love.
God designed fathers and families to be an expression of The Father’s love and care. Many boys and girls form images and impressions of what God is like through their childhood experiences with their biological, step, foster, or adoptive fathers. Many children feel and experience the security that comes from having a loving, tender, involved father and a caring family that displayed God’s love. Many children tell me that they know that their father loved them, but they never felt emotionally connected or felt loved by their father.
Many men and fathers want their children to feel and know their love and God’s love, but they are not good at identifying and expressing their feelings, especially love. Men may struggle to pass on what they never received or experienced from their own father.
In His sovereignty, God broke into our human story to rewrite our love stories. When God seemed silent and distant, our loving heavenly Father sent His One and Only Son, Jesus Christ, to show the world The Father’s love for all of His children. Not only did Jesus sacrifice His life on the cross to forgive our sins, He also forgave the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). The Father gave His best and His all to show us just how loving and kind He really is.
John, Jesus’ beloved disciple who saw and heard and touched Jesus, recorded these powerful words: “Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love has been brought to full expression through us…God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.. Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear” (1 John 4:11,12,16,17).
As I’m writing these words, I’m filled with gratitude to God because He broke into my daddy issues and rewrote the script. God personally broke into my miserable life and poured His life and love into me. The ways that God makes His loving presence known and felt are unique and personal with each of His beloved children. We may push or pull away or doubt God’s love, but God relentlessly pursues His children with His endless love. God doesn’t lack power or resources to melt us with His love.
What blows me away is that God chose imperfect children like us to reflect, display, and bring His love to full expression. We make The Father’s love known and felt when we love one another well. Some of my favorite people in all of the world had fathers who didn’t love them well, but yet they’ve become beautiful people who personally have convinced me of the truth of God’s love. How much and how close we experience and feel The Father’s love may have a lot to do with our own stories. Many fathers, mothers, and children of all ages are shut down. When life becomes too stressful, overwhelming, disappointing, lonely, or painful, we gradually detach and disconnect and no longer feel or deal with our own feelings.
We might blame God, ourselves, people, or experiences, but blaming and shaming only makes us stuck. If you are searching for The Father’s love and if your daddy contributed to your not feeling secure or loved, I pray that you will cry out to God. God wants to restore and heal you with His perfect love that casts out all fear. When you draw near to Him, God draws even closer to you. The Father wants to melt you with His love until it flows through you into the lives of those around you who need a fresh expression of God’s love.
Because my heavenly Father, my family, and my friends have taught and shown me The Father’s love, now I get to spend my life expressing God’s incredible love. As I encounter men and fathers who want to know and feel and express God’s love in healthy ways to those around them, I have recently started a men’s group down at Frazer Automotive. On Fridays at 4:00 at Frazer’s, men are becoming free to share their hearts and feelings and lives with one another. If you have stuff under the hood of your life that’s preventing you from being emotionally, spiritually, and relationally present with those you love the most, come join us on Fridays at four at Frazer Automotive.
