A lot of times our first impression of who God is can be a result of our relationship with our father or other male figures. If that is ever violated in any way, we can place our experiences on the face of God and determine that He is the same.
My father didn’t raise me. I was raised by my mother with the help of her parents. I would say that my father figure growing up in life was my grandfather. He wasn’t perfect and his father wasn’t perfect, but I’m noticing as I learn more about the characteristics of God, that the way my grandfather treated me is very similar to how God feels about me as His son.
While watching The Heart of Man, a specific statement grabbed me and reminded me of a time in life that my grandfather was a perfect picture of how the Lord cares for me.
“There is something in us that knows what it is like to desire to be so small and so protected by a great father. Most of us didn’t have one. But, the few who did really understand what it is to crawl up in his lap and to know that he beams over us.”
Dr. Dan Allender
The Heart of Man Film
In middle school, I began to have a lot of fear at the start of each day of “what the day could bring”. I remember waking up at my grandparents house, having breakfast, and as the time drew closer for me to leave for school, worry and anxiety would grip me like a cancer. I would start to cry because I didn’t know what would happen to me once I left the house. This continued for awhile.
After I shared how I was feeling with my grandfather, he offered to have me sit with him on his lap in his rocking chair each morning before school, and tell him everything I was worried about. So that’s what I did.
I would wake up and he’d be in his chair waiting for me. I’d sit on his lap (although I was far too big to be sitting in his lap at 11 years old) and tell him all the thoughts that were going through my mind. He would just listen. As I would near the end of my list of fears, I realized that I felt so much better being able to tell him. There was a peace about him that made me feel that I really had nothing to worry about at all.
Sure enough, each morning he’d be waiting for me and we’d do the same thing. We continued for a time, until one day I noticed that the fear was gone. I had become strong enough to feel that my worries no longer impacted me in the same way; that they were being made worse in my imagination, and that I didn’t have to accept my fear.
As an adult, I’ve noticed different worry and fear has crept into my mind, and God calls me to his rocking chair in the same way my grandfather did. God wants me to crawl into His lap and share my inner most struggles with Him; and that in His arms are peace and security. Things will go wrong in this world, but I have nothing to fear because He has overcome the world!
My grandfather has since passed away, but I’m thankful for the picture he gave me of how the Lord cares for me as a father. In The Heart of Man, the interviewee says it took him 50 years to wipe the face of his father off from the face of God. I’m grateful that my grandfather’s face reflected that of God’s.
Thank you Pep.
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