As a child growing up without a dad, my favorite name of God in the New Testament became Father. I grew fond of the name after memorizing and reciting the Lord’s Prayer before bedtime. Every night, my prayers declared that He was Our Father who lived in Heaven.
The prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 includes a proclamation that He is holy, meaning that His reputation is holy. And, His character has been, is, and “will always” be holy.
Unlike Merriam-Websters Dictionary that defines a father as a male who has begotten a child; Mounce Reverse Interlinear New Testament Bible implies that the name Father, patēr, also includes the essence of who the person is. The name patēr is used to describe God as the Father of man through creation. The Father of Jesus, His Son. He is a Father that cares for us. His name represents protection, strength and authority. And, in my case, He is a Father to the fatherless.
To say that I had an immediate connection with calling God my Father is a stretch. Initially, the first word in Matthew 6:9; “our,” kept me aloof and lacking the feeling of daughterhood. The prayer from my mouth could as well have come from a machine repeating lines without feeling. It didn’t feel personal until one day it did.
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Nothing out of the ordinary happened that led to this shift. It was simply an awareness revealed while feeling fatherless one day. It felt like God was putting this intrusive thought of fatherlessness to rest, once and for all. In an instant, He demolished the intrusion that came to steal my joy one Father’s Day, when everyone was celebrating their dad, except me.
Another act of intrusion He tore down was camouflaged as a lie to deceive me from the truth of my Heavenly Father’s love. Each and every intrusion, although crafted differently, was an attempt to isolate me away from the truth that I have a Father.
His love swept over my mind and heart filling a void that had been open for much too long. There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit played an important role in this revelation. But, humanly thinking, this relationship was foreign to me at first. I had no idea how to enter into a relationship with a Supreme Being that I call Father. It felt like an unlikely pairing. But the Bible says, His unchanging plan has always been to adopt me and you into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And he did this because He wanted to! (Ephesians 1:5.) He really wanted to be My Father, and I want to be His daughter.
Through my spiritual adoption, He grafted this poor African American girl into Himself. This invisible union connects me to a new home in eternity by faith in His Son. To be honest, I didn’t know how I would fit into this new family unit. My sins were many. But overtime, I learned that my family members were just like me: sinners, saved by grace, and in desperate need of a loving Father to nurture them through mistakes and failures.
Even now, whenever I fall short, the stronger of the two grafts, God, nourishes the weaker one, me, to make me stronger and different on the inside. Without Him, I couldn’t do this.
I welcome this type of kindness. It’s the type that never gives up and leads to repentance. It teaches that nothing we could ever do can separate His love from us united by faith.
And, if you were wondering, there are other names of God that I love. I also celebrate that.
My Father is the Lord, our great Lord, Adonai. Nothing or no one can escape His eye. Nothing can surpass His greatness and control. No circumstance is mightier than He is. His strength overcomes mountainous problems. He is higher than anything and greater than any man. No supervisor, no pastor, no president, legal representative, judge, or any authority can reign over Him. He sits high above them all. Man serves under His sovereignty. And, when evil raises its head to attack, their forward advancement is against God My Father. He is my shield. He stands before me.
My Father is my Banner, Jehovah Nissi. Who can win a battle against Him? It’s foolish to try. Those who would dare will come to ruins, Proverbs 13:3. Their words and deeds will fail. The sting of their attempt will be soothed by His love towards His own. His Spirit makes His children alive. His infilling of the Holy Spirit reminds me that we are His: Called to live by faith and set apart for righteous living.
My Father Provides, Jehovah Jireh. When we call for help, He provides for us. On the heels of darkness, He brings us light. When we can’t see our way out of a bad situation, He is the pathway to the answer on the other side. Our Father has the solution. When we find ourselves face-to-face with sickness or church hurt, Jehovah Jireh sees your situations and provides.
Praise God for our Wonderful Counselor! The Mighty God! The Prince of Peace! The Lord who sees us! The Everlasting Father!
And, let’s not forget some of the other names of our Father God.
El Elyon: The Lord Most High
Elohim: The All Powerful One; Creator
El Roi: The Lord who sees me
El Shaddai: The All Sufficient One; The God of the Mountains; God Almighty
Jehovah: I AM, The One Who is The Self-Existent One
Jehovah Shalom: The Lord is Peace
Jehovah Rapha: The Lord Who Heals
Jehovah Rohi: The Lord is My Shepherd
Amen!
Brenette Wilder, formerly of Altheimer, Ark., is a blogger at wordstoinspire105953116.wordpress.com and author of Netted Together, https://nettedtogether.org.
Editor’s note: Pastors, ministers or other writers interested in writing for this section may submit articles for consideration to shope@pbcommercial.com or shope@adgnewsroom.com. Please include your phone number and the name and location of your church or ministry. Writers should have a connection to Southeast Arkansas.