A Series of Confessions: God, the Father? A reflection on Fatherhood of God.

This post is in a series of posts; to understand The Reason(s) for these posts please click the hyper link.

This was a reflection on fathers' day in addition to God the Father, and I apologize that it is so late but, this post hurt every time i sat to write it.This post was actual the first post I stated in this series and never finished it, till now.

The issue of whether or not there is a God is not necessarily a problem for me, even though now and then I may doubt the faith (which is another story), but rather how I am supposed to relate to Him and the Persons who make him up. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the easier two to relate with; Jesus was a man, and the Spirit moves about convicting, challenging, and helping me to grow. But God the Father has always been hard for me to relate to or even really call him "father". I also have, at times, a hard time reconciling the God of the O.T. with Jesus (God) of the N.T. at times.

It all has to do with a couple of things in my own Life. The word "father" still holds some bad tastes in my mouth. Unfortunately, I come from a broken home, and have had an "interesting" relationship with my dad. I have grown up in a world where mom was there, and worked nights as I slept at babysitter's houses; where I "had" to grow up and be the man of the house; Where I learned I was another statistic waiting to happen; Where my dad showed up on birthdays and holidays and the occasional random days when he could.

You must understand I do not want sympathy for this, its a now sad part of life even more so now than before, it is a weight that hurts that i need to share and  let go of more and more. I have been hurt by my dad, he has left a scar and has tainted the word "father" for me, or rather what it should be. Father should be a representation of the Love of God, the Care from God, and a Representative of God. Yet no one can do that perfectly, therefore we all have been hurt by our fathers given a  bad representation of God, some have it worst than others. Yet our true father our heavenly father is different. He is there, He cares, He provides, He Loves, He is listening, He protects. He is the Perfect Father, the one we long for, we want. He is the perfect teacher of what it means to be a father.

There are so many guys and girls that have been hurt by their father or lack there of. Whether it be physical, emotional, or mental scars, You are not alone and I can say that you can break the cycle and the statistics I have. I may not have the earthly father i want and or need but i do have a Heavenly one who cares and will not let me down.

The book Wild at Heart by John Elderidge, I know that this book is controversial but I learned form this and understood what the book was trying to talk about; it talks about the scars on our hearts our earthly fathers gave us and how our Heavenly Father Heals them and fills in any and all gaps in our hearts. A couple other books have helped me as well including The Masculine Mandate by Richard D. Phillips, and Father Fiction by Donald Miller. All these books are geared toward men and boys but Father Fiction is a good read for both genders.