The Love of the Father

God makes it so clear that He loves us.  But do you know this for yourself?  Have you experienced the Father’s love? It is one thing to read about it, and another to know it deep within your spirit.

Over many years as a Christian, I knew, in a detached sort of way, that my heavenly Father loved me. However, because of the lack of emotional love from my earthly father, I couldn’t seem to experience God’s love in that way. I wasn’t upset or angry about it. I just accepted it. But I did feel a bit annoyed when I heard people enthusiastically proclaim that ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8). Why? Because I reasoned that, if God is love, then He had no choice other than to love me. The lack of choice (free will) on God’s part invalidated its worth to me. As a result, I didn’t ever hope to experience the love of my heavenly Father, even though I did accept that He loved me.

However, although I had given up, God hadn’t. Over a period of about eighteen months, I went through a difficult time in church. I had no idea why this was happening, but looking back, I realise God was allowing it so that I would begin to seek Him.

During this time, God led me to various books on God’s love. I realised that I needed to fully forgive my earthly father for not loving me in the way that I desperately needed to be loved. He didn’t ever abuse me. He looked after me the best he could, showing his love in practical ways, but never at an emotional level.

One evening, the author of a book I was reading had written, “and God actually likes you.” It was as if an explosion went off in my spirit, and the barrier of self-protection I had inadvertently erected between God and me was breached for the first time.

The idea of God liking me was more important to me than Him loving me. Why? Because ‘like’ is a choice, and I had assumed ‘love’ from God was not. So, the journey continued, and the pace quickened.

Over the next weeks and months, I took down the barrier between me and God. I fully forgave my father and wrote a letter to him, explaining what he had done, and how I had felt. He had been dead for some time, but this wasn’t about communing with the dead. This was about dealing with my feelings and hurts. At the end of the letter, I wrote that I forgave him. I prayed for the ungodly soul tie with him to be broken, and fully turned to my heavenly Father to experience His love. During this process, a minister, who was older than me, embraced me as a human father, loving me, and I broke down in tears.

The final stage was to speak out the truth of God’s love for me. So, I started to say every morning, “Daddy, I’m Your little boy and I belong to you!” Initially it felt stupid saying it, but after a week or so I began to fully embrace it, and I began to really mean it. I still say it because it’s so true. Now I know that my heavenly Father loves me.

Perhaps this testimony of my journey, and the steps involved in it, may help you on your own journey towards experiencing God’s love as His beloved son or daughter.