A Good Good Father

Have you heard Chris Tomlin’s song Good Good Father?

At a conference last week, I let my tears fall and my mouth stay closed as I thought to myself is God really a “good good Father?”

Last week someone who is like a dad to me, basically he is my dad, was in the hospital. Because of my experience with my dad, hospitals are not okay with me. 10 years ago, my dad hadn’t been sick in months, he was getting better and all the sudden he wasn’t, he was rushed to the hospital and one week later he died. So yeah, hospitals aren’t okay with me.

You can only imagine the thoughts running through my head last week as I got emails and texts and constant reminders that people were praying and everyone was talking about it. It was hard. And scary. I’m way better at acting like everything is okay, and I couldn’t this time.

And I couldn’t find how in the world God was a good good father when the two fathers I had known on earth were gone and dying.

I really couldn’t believe it. But the older I get, the more I realize things about myself. Things I didn’t deal with as a fatherless girl, things I never thought of as I grew up through high school without my dad, and sometimes I’ll just think “woah, everyone has a dad, that’s so weird.” Even today, I thought about how it would feel to have two parents to call or another parent to talk to when things didn’t make sense.

So many people talk about how so many Christians relate God to their own fathers, that’s why this Good Good Father song is popular. But that’s why it’s so hard for me. I had an amazing dad but, the things I remember about my dad aren’t much- they’re mustered together from slight memories, old pictures and other people’s stories. I was 10 when he got sick and to think how fast these past 10 years have been without him, and the 6 years of toddlerhood didn’t help me with memories of him. So this song, it’s tough and that’s why I wrote this blog post. Because I’m sure I’m not the only one.

But this song, it truly says it all. No matter who your earthly father is, what he has done to you, what he hasn’t done for you. Whether he is here or whether he has passed away. If he’s loved you your whole life or you’ve never even met him. If he’s your step dad or adopted dad. Or like me, someone who is like your dad, but isn’t. No matter who your earthly father is, you have a good good Father in Heaven and He loves you so much. He has nothing in common with your earthly father. He has plans for you, plans He controls and they’re plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. He tells us that in Jeremiah 29 and He goes on to tell us that when we seek Him with all our hearts, we will find Him. He isn’t gone, He isn’t hiding, He hasn’t left us- He is there. He is waiting for us to seek Him. He doesn’t move, we do. He doesn’t turn His back on us, we turn our backs on Him.

I love the chorus to this song because it’s something I’ve been learning from Jen Wilkin. The Bible isn’t about who we are, it’s about who God is. When we know who God is we know who we are. He is a Good, Good Father, it’s Who He is and we are loved by God, it’s who we are.

No matter what circumstances you’re going through- sickness, crisis, happiness, joy, loneliness, depression, success, failure- fatherless, abandoned, divorced, broken- know that you have a Good, Good Father it’s Who He is and you are loved by Him, it’s who you are!