What stories told to you have impacted you the most? What characteristics of God do you see revealed through the stories of others?

There were several times I had an encounter with Jesus. This day was one them. And we can’t have encounter with Jesus and not be changed. God was breaking me open so that He can heal me of decades of experiencing shame.

July 2017, A new set of lenses the way we see Our Father.

I can sense now why Our Father brought me here; to the place where “people are sitting out their lives in the dark. I knew God was uncovering a painful truth about many of us who belong to Him—namely that there are places in us that trust no one, not even a good and perfect heavenly Father; that there are broken spaces in our spiritual and emotional makeup in which we choose to live as if we have been completely abandoned—orphaned by God.

Our Father is not scowling at you. Jesus said, “… for I am gentle and kind. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Jesus is redefining our realities.

We live in an imperfect world, we all deal with insecurity in some way. We all in the Church have this idea that although He’s a perfect God, and He’s holy and He’s just, and He has wrath, but it’s His kindness that leads us to repentance. He’s a kind God. He’s a good Father who pays attention to His kids. He created us with so much detail and intricacy. He’s all about those things. He’s first a Father.

It’s been sad that some of us were born into the idea that God’s a tyrant and we’re in trouble when we do something wrong. He’s a Father who longs to gather us, wrap us in His arms and love us so much that we won’t want to go back to living the wrong way. He literally loves the hell out of us. He loves the longing for anything but Him out of us. Once we’ve tasted the kindness of a Good Father, nothing else is desirable.

The more we are in His arms, the more we see that, and come out of that hiding place. We all go in and out of that hiding place. On this side of Heaven, we all face insecurity, but maybe we get to a place where it doesn’t live inside of us. When the Lord has delivered us from fear, when His arms are wrapped around us and we are delivered from fear by His perfect love, we still face it because we live in an imperfect place with people who are well-meaning but have a distorted view of fathers.

Psalm 46:1 God is our shelter and our strength. When troubles seem near, God is nearer, and He’s ready to help. So why run and hide?

This song is a picture of a Good, Good Father who was after one of His kids who had begun to judge herself. She was standing at a distance instead of running into the arms of the only One who could heal her of the things she was ashamed of.