Do you have a hole in your heart that you long for your father to fill? Maybe you haven't had a real relationship with your father," and you wish you could be close to him.
In Luke 15 of God's Word is the familiar story of the prodigal son, who got his inheritance early from his father. He went to a far country and spent it all, and ended up feeding pigs and eating with them. Verse 17 says, "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father, and say to him, Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father."
This is the story of a searching man whose real problem was that he was away from his father. Maybe that's a picture of you right now. In the story, God is the Father and He has said He wants you to know Him as Heavenly Father." Maybe you would say, "Well, if he is like the father I had, I'm not too interested."
Remember this. God is not like an earthly father. He is like the father you wish you had." What you are feeling down deep in your soul is father-lonely. You have a hole that you are waiting for a father to occupy. All you need to do is find Him.
Luke 15 says that young man "set off for a distant country." The Bible says we have all done that. It says, "We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glorious ideal," and wandered away like sheep. We are away from God by our own choosing." It then says, "He squandered his wealth." All your years away from God are wasted years until you know the relationship with a father that you were made for. It says, "He spent everything." That is so easy. We spend our self-respect, our relationships, our virginity, our reputation, and our future in search of the missing part of us. We cannot find ourselves in achievements, relationships, or pleasure. We spend everything. Then it says, "he longed to fill his stomach." Maybe you feel an awful emptiness inside that nothing has been able to fill.
Then, "He came to his senses." Maybe that is where God is bringing you right now. It's hard to live without God"; it's hell to die without Him. It says that the son went to his father. There is only one way you can get to the father you were made by and for. In John 14:6 Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me."
What would happen if you came to Him today? It says that "while the boy was a long way off, his father saw him, was filled with compassion for him, and ran to his son. He threw his arms around him and kissed him."
That is the welcome you could get from God today. He runs to you with His arms open wide. Why don't you run to Him and be born into His family today? No longer will you have that hole in the center of your life where a father should be. Come to the Heavenly Father and you will never be father-lonely again."