This has been called “the fatherless generation,” and we usually think of that for people who grew up without a father or who were separated from him by divorce or death. But the spirit of being an orphan can overtake even the person who had a father nearby. They are only human, after all. Feeling orphaned emotionally can be debilitating. You can feel like you have no real inheritance, no one to protect you, intense lonliness and fear that no one really cares how life turns out for you in the end. Providing sperm does not a father make, at least not in the heart sense.
There is a Father who is true (did you recently read His love letter to you here?). The Father heart of God towards you is consistently loving and unconditional, as portrayed in Jesus’ parable about the returning prodigal son and the father who ran to the road to welcome him home. Father God pays close attention, He listens and responds. He is available and close, encouraging us and giving us hope. Father instructs us and redirects through discipline, always there for us, a very present help in time of trouble. He protects His own, stands up for us, then releases us in freedom – empowering us to be all He created us to be and to do all He created us to do. Father loves you.
Just in time for Father’s Day – I have a prayer for those of you who need one…
Father, I pray for a revelation of Your perfect love – for You are the Father we have been looking for! Today I pray for those who pull away from You when they think of You as a father. I pray that you will show Yourself a true Father to them and that they can receive Your kindness, Your patience, Your strength and Your powerful love, the truth of who you are for them. Just like a young father bends down tenderly to communicate with his little child, You keep pursuing us, smiling on us, drawing close. You want us to know You as Father.
So, Father, I pray that You would reveal to us the truth, that we would finally and totally choose to see past our distortions of who You are. And, Father God, if our dads and fathers fell short in any way in how you’d have had them father us, or in reflecting Your love – whether through absence or pre-occupation with work, or their anger, critical words or abuse – where perhaps these wounds have caused us to live with an orphaned spirit, stuck in fearfulness and rejection, please come, Father. Comfort us. Don’t leave us in this state. Unlock the parts of our hearts that are frozen by fear. And Father God, where perhaps our dads acted from their own anger or pain and it has caused injury or woundedness to our hearts, we choose to reach out for the healing You provided for us in Your great love. He was wounded for our transgressions…by His stripes we are healed…
And as Father’s Day approaches, would you minister to those who had no father at all, especially to those who haven’t yet recognized the void and loss of that?
Lord, show us how we have expected you to fail us because of our own human dads. You have promised to never leave nor forsake us. You have said You will be a Father to us. Would You help us learn to trust? Would You give a gift of trust so we can enjoy You with childlike abandon?
Come, Father, into the undeveloped areas where we have not been fully fathered. We need You to Father us. Thank-You for calling us by name. Thank-You for being pleased with us. Thank-You for rejoicing over us with singing. Thank-You that You won’t leave us feeling as orphans, but You come to us.
We receive the blessing from Your Father heart to ours.
Prayer adapted.
Image from a wonderful website: www.afathertoyou.com