“I am your father.”- God…..and Darth Vader.

From whose mouth would you rather hear these words?

Some of you are incredulous that you just read that question. You can't fathom desiring to be friends, let alone the daughter or son, of the one who turned to the dark side.

For others, answering this question is like choosing between consuming toilet water and flies after somebody had diarrhea or trying to escape a shark attack with only a paperclip to defend yourself. The word “father” has been shattered by absence, mangled by abusive words, twisted by betrayal, and hopelessly crushed by men whose actions are strangers to love. God couldn’t have picked a worse metaphor to describe himself.

Nearly any man can create a child. It only takes a few minutes to initiate meiosis. They don’t have to deal with morning sickness. They don’t have another human repeatedly kicking them in the stomach. They don’t have to eat enough food for two people. All they have to do is give a few minutes of their time. After that, a man can choose to be present with his child or be completely preoccupied with work or hobbies, to love that child to the best of his ability or demonstrate indifference towards the physical and emotional needs of his offspring, to be a daddy or to make his child an orphan while he is still living. He chooses which adjectives his child will associate with the word “dad.”

For those of you who can only associate painful adjectives with the word father, I'm sorry. God never intended “father” to be a pain-saturated word. It was meant to be associated with “I love yous” and joy from spending time together. It was supposed to remind you of a man who pulled out splinters and put bandaids on your wounds instead of creating them; a giver of smiles instead of a thief; an unconditional rock in hard times.

Are you permanently doomed to struggle with giving God the chance to be your dad? How can you possibly change the way you think about fathers without any evidence to contradict the ugly image you have always known? These scars run to the deepest level of who you are. Fortunately, God specializes in heart surgery, and He has three powerful tools He uses during the operation: prayer, scripture, and godly men.

When you allow Bible verses to penetrate and soak into your heart, they displace the negative misconceptions you have about your heavenly Father. Lies and truth cannot cohabitate. One inevitably squeezes the life out of the other. When you pray these verses back to God and meditate on how He is your Father, you strengthen your ability to acknowledge and receive His love. And when you seek to surround yourself with mature, godly men, you will catch a glimpse of how God loves you when you witness these men love their children. You may even be blessed enough to be “adopted” into a family and experience that kind of love firsthand.

With these things in place, you will come to see how God has compassion for you. It will become evident that His love is so great that He willingly allowed Himself to be tortured, humiliated, and murdered for you. Which one of you is willing to do that for me? What? Nobody? His patience and mercy will amaze you. He delights in our attempts to please Him, even though they are like a toddler’s art project that could represent a donkey, an elephant or a churro. He picks us up and holds us, comforting us when life spins out of control. His love will blind you. You will see He is the personification of good.