Thursday, August 12, 2004
Single parenting is no longer the exception in America. There are millions of families where it's just a mom or just a dad. You know, there's been a lot of conversation and a lot of articles written, a lot of commentary about the impact of not having a dad that is really being a father to you. In fact, one of the leading health officers in the United States said this: "The greatest issue facing us is fatherlessness." Time Magazine commented on women who choose to have a fatherless family. Here's what they said: "They are bringing a child into the world with a hole at the center of his life where a father should be."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I'd like to have A Word With You today about "My Father is Missing."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke chapter 15. This is the familiar story of the prodigal son, who got his inheritance early from his father, went to a far country, spent it all, ended up feeding the pigs and trying to eat 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 he 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 God has told us He wants us to know Him as our Heavenly Father. You say, "Well, if he's like the father I had, I'm not very interested." Well, remember this. God is not like the father you had on earth. He's like the father we all wish we had, and what you're feeling down deep in your soul is father-lonely. We have a hole that we are waiting for a father to occupy.
How do we lose Him, and how do we find Him? Look at the verbs in Luke 15. It says that the young man "set off for a distant country." The Bible says we've all done that. It says, "We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glorious ideal," we've wandered away like sheep. We are away from God by our own choosing. The next verb says, "He squandered his wealth." See, all our years away from God are squandered years. They're wasted years until you know the relationship with a father that you were made for. The next verb says, "He spent everything." You can do that so easily. We spend, in search of the missing part of us. We spend our self-respect, we spend our relationships, our virginity, our reputation, our future. We can't find ourselves in achievements, relationships, pleasure. We spend everything. And then it says, "He longed to fill his stomach." Maybe you feel an awful emptiness inside that nothing has been able to fill.
Then we read, "He came to his senses." Maybe that's 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 up to his father. There is only one way you can get to the father you were made by and made for. In John 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." What would happen if you came to Him today? It says, "while the boy was a long way off, his father saw him, ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." That's the welcome you could get from God today. He runs to you with His arms wide open.
Why don't you run to Him and be born into His family today? If you want to begin your personal love relationship with Him, tell Him that. And let me send you the booklet I wrote about beginning this relationship with Him called Yours For Life. Just let me know you want it. And then, no longer will you have that hole in the center of your life where a father should be. No father on earth could ever fill that hole anyway. It was made for your Heavenly Father. Come to Him and you'll never be father-lonely again.