You can go here to listen to Matt Redman's song, and to hear other his songs too. Redman is English, so listen to hear the quality of depth in his worship, since he is a part of the light shining in the darkness in the UK and Europe just talked about in the previous post. He is one of our foremost worship leaders and songwriters in the world today.
My father was a disappointment and still is. He is a retired Lutheran minister and he abused me verbally and a little bit physically too. He has always been a mystery - contradicting what he preaches. With severe anger and impatience with people that showed no Christian love, mostly behind the scenes where church people couldn't see it, one wondered where and how Christ was living in his heart. It was explained by Jesus in the gospels where he said the Word fell on hard ground, a hard heart, and didn't produce fruit. That is my dad.
He severely damaged my relationship to God, and I lived apart from God for years and in wrong relationships with men. The end result? I ended up coming back to Minnesota at 30 seeking to reconcile with my dad and seeking a more stable life. I fell in love with a man ten years younger than me. It didn't work out and I was devastated. I then started to seek God at about 37 and haven't stopped since.
I have come so close to God and it is oh so good to be close to father God. And who do I have to thank? My dad. If he hadn't hurt me, if my earthly father hadn't failed me, I may not have drawn so close to the heavenly father. I can thank the young man who left me too, because it was after he left that I started to passionately pursue The Father.
It is so hard for those of us who have a damaged relationship with our earthly fathers. I live with him again and he hasn't changed - that's the hardest part. He is still abusive toward my mom, avoiding me because he does have a conscience about that, and because in his elderly frailty he no longer has the energy to abuse me.
What do we do in that situation? We have no choice but to forgive and to keep on forgiving. I now understand why Jesus talked about forgiving 70 times 7. We have to do it over and over again. And it's hard. It's hard when someone has refused to change. But I have forgiven my dad, and I do love him as my dad. I love him as the WWII veteran that he is, and for all that he does not understand in this life, but he will understand someday when he goes to be with God. In part I believe he will be judged, but I also believe he will finally be loved in ways he never was, and his spirit will finally be freed from the bondage that it is in - bondage that none of us is able to free him from.
When I listen to a beautiful song like Matt Redman's about The Father, I do not think of my earthly father, but I think of my perfect heavenly father, who has so nearly perfectly (at this point in my life) replaced the missing father love that so severely damaged me, with his perfect father love. The Father's Song is a song that The Father has sung over me. Let Him sing it over you.
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