​(excerpts from my book, When Father is a Bad Word)

Father. For some, that is a word that conjures up feelings of warmth, security, and pride. For all too many others it is a word that triggers shame, pain, and anger.

The relationship we have with our fathers has a profound effect on every human relationship we have on this earth. And it plays a crucial role in shaping the relationship we have with God.
           
I have known first-hand the pain inherent of growing up with an alcoholic father. Through the years I have discovered how my dad’s drinking not only drove a wedge between the two of us, it also became a barrier between me and God.

I had unwittingly transferred characteristics of my earthly father to my Heavenly Father. My journey toward spiritual health has led me to a profoundly more accurate understanding of who my Heavenly Father really is. The journey has also led me to cross paths with countless people who are dealing with (or not dealing with as the case may be) the same dilemma: adults, teens, and children whose concept of their Heavenly Father has been tainted by relationships with their earthly fathers that were far from ideal. 

The truth of the matter is this: There is a direct parallel between how we experience our fathers and how we experience our God. The toxins from a strained or non-existent father-child relationship can be lethal to our relationship with God. If our home life was poisoned by our father’s anger or abuse, or perhaps his ambivalence or absence, there is a strong likelihood our spiritual life will be tainted as we experience our Heavenly Father in much the same way.

The misconceptions of who God really is are devastating. They have led some to reject God altogether. Even the thought of entering a relationship with a Heavenly Father makes us sick to our stomach. We convince ourselves that it’s not worth the risk; that if we just walk away we will be better off.

But the sad reality is when we walk away from our Heavenly Father we are turning our backs on the only One who can provide healing for our father wounds. He is a Father we can trust. A Father who will never leave us. A Father who will love us no matter what. A Father who protects us and wants us to prosper. A Father who longs to hold us. A Father who encourages His kids. A Father who genuinely wants to spend time with us, who is pleased with us. A Father who suffers with us. A Father who gives us hope and a future.
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Father wounds can be healed when we place ourselves in the arms of our Heavenly Father.

His character is conspicuously absent in virtually every children's Christmas program. His figurine is not included in traditional nativity sets. Carols don't even make mention of him. Yet he is a central character in the Christmas story. In fact, without him there is no Christmas story.

We all know the hero in the story of Christmas: Jesus, the Son of God come to earth. But without a villain there can be no hero. We need to recognize the archenemy in the narrative of Christmas. His name is Satan, a.k.a. Beelzebub, the Devil, the Prince of Darkness, the Evil One.

We do ourselves a great disservice by ignoring the Enemy's role in the story of Jesus coming to earth. As captivating as the feel-good storyline is, what with the virgin birth, the Messiah in a feeding trough, and a sky full of angels, when we don't recognize the villain, the story of Christmas loses all dramatic impact. It's like Peter Pan without Captain Hook. The Wizard of Oz without the Wicked Witch of the West. Die Hard without Hans Gruber. Moby Dick without, well, Moby Dick.

Yes, it's true. God sent His Son to the world in the form of a baby to save us from our sins, to restore us to right relationship with Him. But we will never grasp the significance of God's generous gift to us until we identify the villain in the story and give him his due. 

We have a powerful enemy. We cannot ignore that. And he has but one objective--to keep us as far away from God as possible. He knows what God and us together can do. So he works long and hard to separate us from God, to keep us stuck in our sinful thoughts, behaviors, and addictions. He is cunning and smart. He knows everything about us--our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, our blind spots. And that is precisely where he attacks.

The Bible warns us of the enemy's presence and offers this stern warning: Stay sober, stay alert! Your enemy, the Adversary, stalks about like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8, CJB). What a terrifying and precise word picture. We must never forget that the Devil is always on the prowl, waiting to pounce when we least suspect it; seeking to rip from our grasp God's gracious gifts of love, joy, hope, and peace and force on us his onerous offerings of fear, shame, discontent, and hate, of which he has an endless supply.

Jesus was born to set us free, to release us from our sins and fears. But that is not to say that His coming into the world and into our lives has stopped the Enemy from carrying out his dirty deeds. We will continue to do battle with Satan as long as we are on this earth. Jesus didn't come to take our adversity away. He came to help us get through it and point us to a future life with Him where there will be no trials or troubles. His words recorded in John 16 are both frightening and comforting:  Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world (Jn. 16:33, NLT).

We need to recognize the presence of the enemy in the Christmas story and in our lives. But we must also stand firm in the truth that as powerful and persistant as he is, he is no match for Jesus. Our battles with him continue. But, thanks be to God, the war has been won!

Hail, the heaven-born Prince of peace!
Hail the Sun of righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King.

We've all, at one time or another, stood trembling on the shores of hopelessness. 

• Devastated by a consultation with our doctor that began with, "I don't know how to tell you this, but..."
• Despondent because the divorce papers we hold in our hands confirm that the spouse we longed to grow old with doesn't love us anymore.
• Doubting because God didn't answer our prayers to heal that loved one who meant so much to us. 

• Desperate because that dark cloud of depression continues to hang over our heads with no sign of dissipating.
• Disheartened because, despite our best efforts, we've had a relapse in our battle with addiction. Again.  

There is no darker place than a soul that has lost hope. 

Centuries ago, God's chosen people, the Israelites, found themselves in a seemingly hopeless situation. After being released from captivity in Egypt they thought they were home free, in the literal sense. 

God had promised them a new place to live--a land described in the book of Exodus as a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. That metaphor suggests a place of pure enjoyment, a vibrant and fertile land. The Hebrew word used for flowing comes from a verb which is best translated, to gush.  After years of hardship, the people of Israel were looking forward to a life of joy and blessing, with God's goodness gushing all over them. 

But those dreams were dashed once they heard the muffled sounds of galloping horses coming up from behind. The Egyptians had rethought their decision to let God's people go and were now in hot pursuit to bring them back to the land of slavery. 

There was no way the people of Israel could outrun Egypt's finest chariots. Making matters worse was the fact that the Israelites were unarmed. But sealing the hopelessness of the situation was what lay immediately ahead. There, stretched out before the Israelites as far as they could see, was the Red Sea. They had nowhere to turn--except to God.

Most of us, at some point in our lives, have stood on that shore. We may be standing there now. Adversity pressing in on all sides with no conceivable way out. Crying out to God for help. And if we listen--really listen with a heart of faith--we will hear Him. He tenderly responds to us as He did to the children of Israel (Ex. 14):

• Don't be afraid.
• Stand firm.
• I will fight for you.

• I will deliver you.

The Apostle Paul refers to God as our "source of hope." His desire is that His children "overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 15:13). So He continually speaks words of hope to us. In fact, the Bible could best be described as God's message of hope to the world. 

That message flows through the book of Psalms:

• Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God (Ps. 42:5).
• We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield (Ps. 33:20).
• The LORD’s delight is in those who fear him, those who put their hope in his unfailing love (Ps. 147:11).
• Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them (Ps. 10:17).
• Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge (Ps. 62:5-8).

God doesn't promise that we will never experience painful trials in our lives. But He promises that we will never face those trials alone. Hope is not the absence of pain, it's the presence of God.

The Bible says, The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him (Lam. 3:25). We describe life as "good" when everything works out exactly as we want. God's "good" is different. It's "better than good." It reaches beyond our circumstances and embraces our souls. When we seek God, believing that He is our source of hope, we will experience His goodness. We will feel His abiding presence. We will gain a deeper understanding of His love. We will acquire the confidence to take our next step. We will receive the strength to trust Him even when we don't understand Him. 

God is the hope of the world. With the hope of the world on our side, we will never again encounter a hopeless situation.

Human suffering. I've seen so much of it these past couple of weeks that the idea of living alone on a desert island is sounding appealing.

• Dozens of people shot in a cold-blooded massacre at a nightclub.
• ​An Ohio woman charged with trafficking her 11-year-old daughter for sex to feed her heroin addiction.
• Parents experiencing the death of their son in an ungodly alligator attack in Disney World, of all places.

I had to stop watching the news. I couldn't bear to see any more anguish.

But human suffering continued to infiltrate my world. It crept into my private circles. In just the past few days, people have talked with me--people I know and care about--who are dealing with debilitating depression, cancer diagnoses, childhood sexual abuse, broken marriage vows, even thoughts of ending their lives.

Even though I've been a Christian my entire life I still find myself asking, Where is God in all this suffering? And that's when I begin again to understand that, in times of suffering, it is not the loss of loved ones, the loss of innocence, the loss of ability, or the loss of relationships that wrenches our souls. It is the loss of hope.

Dr. Myron J. Taylor once wrote, “The real sting of suffering is not misfortune itself, nor even the pain or the injustice of it, but the apparent God-forsakenness of it. Pain is endurable, but the seeming indifference of God is not.”

Although suffering makes it seem that God is indifferent it is clear from Scripture that He is not. He cares deeply when His children are hurting. In fact, He suffers with us. He grieves when His children grieve.

Suffering was never part of His plan for His kids. He created for us a perfect world. A world that knew nothing of terrorism or tragedy, of sickness or sorrow. A world in which there was a perfect relationship between the Creator and the created. A world in which He simply delighted in being with us. Then sin entered that world and messed everything up. No one grieves that more than God.

And yet we have hope. Because God is still with us. He accompanies us on our often heartrending journey, but not as an oblivious onlooker. He selflessly, compassionately offers us what we need--healing for our broken hearts, rest for our weary souls, strength that is made perfect in our weakness, peace that passes human understanding.

God not only walks with us through our suffering, He enters into it. And in our times of deepest anguish when we think we can't go on, He points us to a future in which the perfect world He created will be restored. Where tears and fears will be no more. Where all that's wrong will be made right. Where all that's broken will be made new. 

We need never fear that God has forsaken us. He would never leave us to deal with the heartaches of life on our own. It would go against the Father's nature to abandon His kids. So where is He in our suffering? Smack dab in the middle of it. 

While my Christian school classmates were seemingly bounding through life, bolstered by a strong sense of security and self-worth, confident that God had a bright future in store for them, my life's motto through adolescence stood in stark contrast. My maxim as a child : If you always expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed.

Rainbows and unicorns were conspicuously absent from my childhood. My morbid mantra was formed by the prevailing despair, dejection, and despondence that is sadly common in children growing up in dysfunctional environments.

Strange as it may seem, for kids growing up in troubled homes, following a caustic credo like mine can actually be beneficial. It can protect children from further heartbreak.

• ​If you tell yourself that Mom's depression will once again prevent your family from going on vacation, you can then be pleasantly surprised when she's feeling well enough to go.
• If you assume your dad will come home drunk and you'll have to miss the Father-Son Outing at church, it won't hurt as much when he stumbles into the house long after you were supposed to leave.
• If you convince yourself that you will have to watch the softball game at recess because neither team will want you to play it will seem strangely satisfying to hear, "I guess we'll take you."

One way to be sure your dreams won't be dashed is to simply not allow yourself to dream. 

But while expecting the worst can, in actuality, help us as children, it does nothing but hurt us as adults. Continuing to go through life anticipating a never ending series of disappointments will not only prove devastating to our sense of self-worth, it has the potential to destroy our relationships, including our relationship with God.   

A "what next?" mentality leads to cynicism and pessimism. It can make us sarcastic and distrusting. It fosters doubt and defeatism. These kinds of character traits can prove toxic to our relationship with God and others. The end result: a life of despair.

But despair has never been a part of  God's plan for His children. Rather, He offers us the antidote to despair: hope. In the book of Jeremiah the Lord declares, For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (29:11)
 
Hope is more than just wishful thinking (e.g. I hope I'll be happy one day). It is ironclad confidence that God is who He says He is. Our Protector. Our Provider. Our Fortress. The Lifter of our Heads (Ps. 3:3).

Hope looks beyond our preconceived notions and holds firmly to the truth about God's character as presented in His Word:

• When we expect Him to reject, He accepts.
• When we expect Him to condemn, He commends.
• When we expect Him to blame, He blesses.

Hope is also confidence that we are who He says we are. His prized possessions. His beloved children. Heirs to His riches. His chosen ones.
 
God has great affection for us, particularly those of us who have known rejection. He wants to free us from despair because despair prevents us from having true intimacy with Him. He wants to remove the chip from our shoulders and replace it with Jesus' robes of righteousness.

Even when we expect the worst, God offers us His best. When we open ourselves to Him, He is willing and able to change our attitudes so that we can take in His gifts of love,  grace, healing, and peace. That is power of hope.