My Father’s House

I have been thinking about my Dad more than usual these past few weeks.  Stories I had forgotten about have been flooding my memories.  Some funny, some as life lessons.  All of them were out of his love for his family.  As I move forward in life with decisions on the horizon, I have been asking myself, “what would Dad do here?” Dad and I were close enough that I can almost hear his advise while I’m driving down the road or working on my truck.  His voice is there as a guide even though he has been gone for nearly two years.  I was blessed to call Dan Turner Sr. “Dad.”

I have heard many people speak lately about their home-life while they were growing up.  Some have happy memories where they learned lessons, laughed, and felt loved.  Others tell of nightmarish situations of abuse, neglect, and fear.  Whatever your story is, it can affect your view of the Father.

” Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:” (Gen. 12:1) Why did God tell Abram (later Abraham) to leave his father’s house?  God had something special for Abram.  He wanted to create a nation and He wanted to begin with this man.  In order to do so, Abram could not continue in the ways of his father.  He had to start fresh.  He had to learn from the Father how to become the father of the Hebrew Nation.  He could not do this continuing in the traditions of his father, a worshiper of the sun.

For you who survived your childhood, I want you to know you have a Father who loves you more than you can imagine.  People made decisions you had to live with as a child.  I wish we didn’t live in a fallen world where people abuse the powerless.  I wish there was no physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of any kind.  This is a terrible side effect of the choice two people made in a garden and is against the love and wisdom of the Father.  You are a survivor.  Your Heavenly Father desires more for His children than survival:  He wants you to thrive.

If you are a survivor of your childhood, you may have a difficult time viewing a Father as a good thing.  You may have fear or anger well up when you imagine a father.  This is a tactic the enemy has used for generations.  If you feared or hated your father growing up, you will not naturally walk into the arms of our Heavenly Father and accept all the good He has for you.  The enemy wants us to run from the Father in order to keep us bound in one of two things:  sin or religion.  Both keep us from thriving and living out the blessings God has for us.

Imagine an embrace of pure love and joy.  What does it feel like?  Safe, secure, accepting, forgiving, comforting, joyful, loving.  John ponders the Father’s love, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” (1 John 3:1) We are His children by His Grace through a simple belief.  His love for us is greater than our minds can comprehend.

Paul wrote, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37 – 39) He also prayed for the Ephesian Church and all who would come to Christ (that’s us) in Ephesians, chapter three, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

Whether we had a loving home or survived a nightmare, our Father in Heaven loves us more than we can imagine.  He desires only the best for you.  His embrace is waiting.  As a product of a loving home, this is an easy concept for me to grasp.  I understand though, that there are so many who have survived and have a difficult time reaching out to the Father.  For you, I pray you can leave your father’s house and accept the prayer in Ephesians 3:14 – 21.