A Fathers Love

What value does a father have in the life of a child?

Within the pages of Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship and Wild at Heart, God started doing some incredible things in my heart.  Revealing the desire that I have for a father who loves and cares for me.  Who will be there for me when I’m lost and confused.  A man who will stand for me when no one else will.  

While I was in India a few months ago we were working at an orphanage for children with special needs.  We all chose a child from a list of the kids who usually got overlooked, due to their greater needs.

The thing is the boy who affected me the most was not the one I chose.  He was the boy who made everyone mad.  The first days we were there he was hitting the other children or pushing them over.  

As time went on my frustrations with him grew.  

My annoyance giving way to small bits of anger.

Then the Spirit intervened, showing me this boy through new eyes.  

Not as a trouble maker, but a child desperate for love and attention.  Not knowing any other way to get it than through violence.  

I came in the next day with a changed heart.  When I saw him seeking attention through violence I placed myself there instead or distracted him however I could.  Spinning him through the air, tickling him, whatever I could think of.

I gave him attention not only in those moments but the times he was sitting by himself.  When all the other children would be playing and he was sitting alone, excluded.  I did what I could to include him; sitting next to him on the steps or passing the ball his way.  

After a few days his walls started to crack.  His violence towards me grew less each day, knowing that it was no longer necessary to receive my attention or love.  He started coming over on his own to sit with me or give me hugs as I stood in the courtyard.

Now, six months later I can still remember walking out that gate,  looking back, seeing him there alone.  My heart broke and still does wondering who God would send next to love this little boy.

I was with him for only three hours a day for two weeks.  Even with so little time he was different and so was I.  How many boys and girls are out there waiting for a man to come into their life and love them for who they are.  To show them the unconditional love from the Father’s heart.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)

I don’t know what God has for my future, but there is a desire in my heart to show the Father’s love to orphans.  To be there for them when they are lost and confused.  Standing for them when no one else will.  

I ask you fathers, brothers, friends will you do the same?