I am about 2 years into the journey of fatherhood. (And I recently became a father for the second time!) But when I first came to know that my wife was pregnant with our firstborn, it felt like my soul left my body, to be honest. I mean, I knew I wanted kids, just not at that moment. My wife fully embraced the news but it took me about three days to wrap my head around it because I was overcome with fear. The fear of wondering how I am going to be able to love, raise, and lead this kid in a world that seems to devour us whole. I carried that fear around for the whole 9 months we were pregnant. It slowly made a home in my heart – threatening to eclipse every decision and occasion.
It wasn’t until they handed my son to me to hold for the first time that everything seemed to pause. Suddenly my love for this little boy drowned every fear. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I will protect this boy at any cost – his innocence, his youth, his heart. In my experience as a Christian, I had never quite understood how the Father loved His children until I began to love my son in a fraction of the way God does. I had never comprehended how He cared until I began to devote myself to raising this child with every fibre of my being.
My son gave me a reason to push forward, to become better, to become more. He became the reason to not settle for anything less than the best I can give him. He was constantly on my mind and every decision I made was reasoned through whether it affected him or not. I was immersed in this whole dad gig, and honestly, it’s the best gig I’ve got going!
Becoming a father changed the way I walked as a son. I became acutely aware of the price heaven paid for our salvation.
“For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]
This well-known verse took on a whole new dimension as I came to better understand the Father’s love for me. Giving His Firstborn for us was the highest cost a Father could give. And to think that He did it knowing that we may not accept Him!
The last two years of fatherhood have humbled me in God’s presence as I’ve been confronted with how much He loves us. I’ve been on a journey of comprehending how He had to watch His Son, sinless, take on sin and die a sinner’s death. Comprehending how the entire course of mankind was altered because of a Father’s heart for His children. Comprehending that He exchanged His crown of glory for our flawed crown of thorns.
I have grown to love Him in the last years, coming to understand that the deepest, widest chasm of separation was restored only because of a Father’s grieving heart. He thought it was a worthy price to pay, that He would look away at the sixth hour as death claimed His Firstborn, only to restore not one, but ALL to eternity.
This is the Father’s heart. To know His heart is to know His love – for they cannot be separated. His love is perfect, it’s Holy. And to love like Him and carry a heart like the Father may make people angry – it sure did back when Jesus demonstrated this love. But this is the kind of heart we ought to carry, a heart overwhelming with such majestic love that the world cannot stand it.
And this is what I pray for in my fatherhood journey. To have a heart that reflects that of our perfect Father, so that my sons have no doubt in the existence of heaven.
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