The Love of a Father
I wanted to share a follow-up on last week’s amazing God story about David, one of my coaches from football camp. I always ask permission from those whose stories I share and ideally, you get to hear a quote directly from them. Below is what coach David wanted to share about how God has met him recently.
As a reminder, coach David found out a month and a half ago that his fiancé did not in fact have a hernia as the doctors previously thought, but that she was about 8 months pregnant! They moved up their wedding and were married on November 5. Coach David also got in a gnarly car accident which could have taken his life, but he survived even though the car was totaled and left him without a car. He then got the news that his dad was shutting down the family business and he had to get a new job as well. Lastly, he was youth pastoring at the church his dad was head pastor and had to share with the congregation what was going on. But when he shared with the congregation and they loved and supported him more than he could have hoped. They even shared some of their own stories of unplanned pregnancies and how they wished they would have let God lead them like God had led coach David and his fiancé. He now has a car given to him by a guy in our group, he just landed a new job, and he and his wife welcomed their new baby boy into the world this past weekend.
Although he hadn’t slept in a few days, and I think he fell asleep for a few minutes in our group during prayer, coach David wanted to share this with all of us:
These past couple of months, I have experienced God in a way that I haven't in the past. I don’t exactly know how to describe it. But it’s like I’ve been learning things with my mind but also seeing things with my spirit that I had only held in my head before. I have often spun things in life to make me look the best and benefit me strategically. But now the avoidance of consequences doesn’t guide my decisions, only what God is tugging on my heart to do. There is only telling the truth because that’s what He’s called of us. To some that might seem like a choice I came to on my own, but it's not. This choice to accept the consequences of bad choices and then move forward in love and honesty is because God has called me to surrender control. After I choose to surrender control of a situation, God works in ways I either didn’t care to see or in ways that he wouldn't work before because I was in the way. On a couple of occasions, in the moments that I choose to surrender my life and worries and control to Him, I can almost see him and feel his touch. Before that would have sounded very cliché to me but there really is not a better way to describe how Jesus has met me with everything that's been going on. Through a nearly fatal car crash, and then being given a car, having sex and getting my girlfriend pregnant, and then being received with love and support in our marriage and the birth of our son D4, through leaving the only job I have ever known in my family wood refinishing business and being blessed with a job at the post office willing to pay me double! I have learned that the act of worrying and the feelings of anxiety are just my choices to distrust God. As I am learning, life has been a constant struggle to abide in Christ, and the only thing that remains consistent is that in every struggle, through every sin, God's hand is right there, and His arms are wide open. Waiting for me to accept what He has already given. Unending grace, undeserved mercy, and perfect love.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16-19
As a reminder, coach David found out a month and a half ago that his fiancé did not in fact have a hernia as the doctors previously thought, but that she was about 8 months pregnant! They moved up their wedding and were married on November 5. Coach David also got in a gnarly car accident which could have taken his life, but he survived even though the car was totaled and left him without a car. He then got the news that his dad was shutting down the family business and he had to get a new job as well. Lastly, he was youth pastoring at the church his dad was head pastor and had to share with the congregation what was going on. But when he shared with the congregation and they loved and supported him more than he could have hoped. They even shared some of their own stories of unplanned pregnancies and how they wished they would have let God lead them like God had led coach David and his fiancé. He now has a car given to him by a guy in our group, he just landed a new job, and he and his wife welcomed their new baby boy into the world this past weekend.
Although he hadn’t slept in a few days, and I think he fell asleep for a few minutes in our group during prayer, coach David wanted to share this with all of us:
These past couple of months, I have experienced God in a way that I haven't in the past. I don’t exactly know how to describe it. But it’s like I’ve been learning things with my mind but also seeing things with my spirit that I had only held in my head before. I have often spun things in life to make me look the best and benefit me strategically. But now the avoidance of consequences doesn’t guide my decisions, only what God is tugging on my heart to do. There is only telling the truth because that’s what He’s called of us. To some that might seem like a choice I came to on my own, but it's not. This choice to accept the consequences of bad choices and then move forward in love and honesty is because God has called me to surrender control. After I choose to surrender control of a situation, God works in ways I either didn’t care to see or in ways that he wouldn't work before because I was in the way. On a couple of occasions, in the moments that I choose to surrender my life and worries and control to Him, I can almost see him and feel his touch. Before that would have sounded very cliché to me but there really is not a better way to describe how Jesus has met me with everything that's been going on. Through a nearly fatal car crash, and then being given a car, having sex and getting my girlfriend pregnant, and then being received with love and support in our marriage and the birth of our son D4, through leaving the only job I have ever known in my family wood refinishing business and being blessed with a job at the post office willing to pay me double! I have learned that the act of worrying and the feelings of anxiety are just my choices to distrust God. As I am learning, life has been a constant struggle to abide in Christ, and the only thing that remains consistent is that in every struggle, through every sin, God's hand is right there, and His arms are wide open. Waiting for me to accept what He has already given. Unending grace, undeserved mercy, and perfect love.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16-19
Recent
Archive
2023
Categories
no categories
No Comments