an excerpt from chapter 2 of “Called to War” by Art Hobba:
Some of us had fathers who were present but abusively so, executing seismic reigns of terror in the souls of both wives and their children. William Manchester, noted biographer and author of The Last Lion, devoted significant text to the painful relationship between Sir Winston Churchill and his father, Randolph. “Randolph actually disliked his son,” he writes at one point where he describes how often the father’s harshness had hurt young Winston as a boy. Churchill later wrote of his childhood:
“[My father] wouldn’t listen to me or consider anything I said. There was no companionship with him possible and I tried so hard and so often. He was so self centered no one else existed for him…He treated me as if I had been a fool; barked at me whenever I questioned him. I owe everything to my mother; to my father, nothing”
It’s not difficult to feel the pain of a broken and rejected heart and unfulfilled dreams of intimacy with his father in Churchill’s words. Best Selling Christian writers like Gordon Macdonald (When Men Think Private Thoughts) and John Eldredge (Wild at Heart, Waking the Dead) have well developed treatises on what is referred to as the “wound” of the father….and many readers have found direction and healing in their messages. If you feel a deep stirring regarding this subject matter, both of these authors, MacDonald in particular, offer deeper discourses to help you explore the landscape of your own unique “wound.” It may be that Father God has a gift of healing for you to discover as you seek Him as your Father.
A few of us have had awesome, fully functional earthly fathers. I have found this to be truly rare in my experience with men and women. Other dads, like mine, were missing key components…their presence…or words of love, affirmation, instruction, and needed correction. These missed deposits or “blessings” created vacuous holes in our souls that later caused some to dredge internal harbors of resentment, often leading to harmful behaviors…all trying to fill the voids. The substantial absence of these pillars of sonship we all so desperately need also has a universal way of alienating us from our Father in Heaven. Like Churchill’s father, we don’t really believe Father God even likes us.
Other well meaning Christians have discovered the truth of serving God…but have never experienced the best part; living close to God as your Father…in His embrace under His constant gaze of love and knowing the confirming inner voice of God as your personal adoptive Father. Paul takes the time to write to two churches this all important distinctive of experiencing live as God’s beloved child:
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15).
for more informaton on Art’s new book “Called to War,” go to www.calledtowar.com
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