Its training camp, our heads are bowed, and we’re giving time to God. The leader starts the prayer, “Daddy, you are so good.”
Daddy? Really? Who calls God daddy? I mean I’ve heard Lord, earthly father, even the occasional Abba, and I myself start prayers usually with “Hey God, its me.” But daddy is new, uncomfortable.
Its launch in Atlanta, Georgia, my squad is together and we’re giving our service, our year to God. The leader starts the prayer “Daddy, we know you’re here.”
There it is again. Adults, leaders in our organization, people who have studied and lived their faith for much longer than I have, calling God daddy. There must be something I’m missing because calling God daddy is something I wouldn’t think to do. I don’t even call my earthly father daddy and haven’t for a while now.
We’re in Baños, Ecuador for debrief (a time to stop and process the last month as a squad with our mentors, leaders, and coaches) and we’re dedicating our worship to God. The leader starts the prayer, “Daddy, this is for you.”
OKAY. WHAT IS THIS? I’m missing something. Why do the people around me keep doing this? What is their relationship like with God that they call him Daddy? What is their relationship with their earthly father that they feel comfortable comparing God to their Dad? This time I can’t let this go as something that’s just different. I need to know.
I start to ask my squad-mates questions. What do you call God and why? Often their responses have to do with their relationships with their earthly father and wanting to separate the two in their mind. They recall relationships that contain themes of distance, longing for more, and often hurt just beginning to heal. A lot of the titles let God creep in to the voids that earthly fathers left.
Here’s the thing. My earthly father is great. He was at every marching band competition, every piano recital, every speech competition, and every show choir invitational. We argue politics and shared early morning episodes JAG and Walker Texas Ranger before he left for work and I left for school. It wasn’t and isn’t uncommon for my friends (after giving my dad the usual greeting of a high-five) to say something to the effect of “Molly, I love your dad.” My response is always “me too.” He has made breakfast for my family every weekend and holiday for as long as I can remember. I don’t have many scars from my earthly father and frankly have a hard time thinking of a better person than my dad.
I know that God isn’t my dad. I know my earthly dad isn’t perfect. I know that God is so much more than any one human person. But to call God my dad feels like an insult to my father, who was always visibly there when I’ve struggled to see God in my life more often than not.
I’m sitting in the living room of our host this month. Its all-squad month so all thirty-something of us share this living room and therefore I have ear buds in to do my daily devotional. After training camp and before launch, we were supposed to read this book called the Art of Listening Prayer. I started five days ago. The book is about letting God into your relationship and learning to let him talk back to you.
I’ve shared my struggle with the idea of God as my daddy with a few and their response is usually to pray about it. Let God know that you don’t understand this idea and see what he has to say about it. Up until this point, my prayer life has been very one-sided. Praying about health concerns for my family, thanking God for the day, praying that the teen mothers of our ministry this month will be open to us, the language barrier will be less of a wall, and that we can share love with them–but never taking time to let God speak into these concerns and never going too deep.
Today my devotional is God wanting to relate to us as a father. Once again this devo reflects the notion that God fills all the places where fathers have come short, how he fixes the longing of better relationships, and heals all the places fathers have hurt. I feel the truth in these statements but not how they connect to me. I don’t have the same wounds that need to heal.
As I sit and ask God the suggested questions about my relationship with my dad in connection to my relationship with him, I feel a stirring in my heart. God is bringing to mind memories of my father and I—walking hand in hand at the mall and my dad gives me a twirl, sitting at the kitchen table practicing for a spelling test, my dad tearing up as I stand at the front of church for recognition of some sort. I see the love of God in each memory shining through my dad.
For so long, I didn’t understand. I compared my story of a happy father-daughter relationship and thought maybe God just didn’t show up there because there wasn’t a struggle. In that moment, a light bulb switched on. Some people have a hard time seeing God as a father because theirs couldn’t be what they needed (and that’s fine). I see God through my father and because of mine. My dad oozes the love of my heavenly father and its because I’ve felt my dad’s love that I know my heavenly fathers love and know its real. How much more love to I have the opportunity to experience because of God’s greatness, his vastness, his grace, his love for me? And all I have to do is sit, be quiet, and open the door for him to come through.
