God's Prescription for Your Fear of Abandonment

Monday, 14 September 2009

God's Prescription for Your Fear of Abandonment
A writer on Revelife not long ago contributed the kind of post (here's the link) that gets down inside your heart and starts twisting. She shared how her father had abandoned her (six times, no less) and even when he was around, criticized her appearance and made her feel unloved. As we might expect, that had a terrible effect on her relationship with God, not to mention her relationships with other people. In her words:

Now, I have a Heavenly Father, but it is hard for me to even trust Him due to what happened with my earthly father. I feel that I have to work to earn my salvation a lot, despite what I am told and despite the constant grace that God shares with me. I always feel that if I am "not good enough" or "not perfect enough" for God, that He will leave me.

She's not alone. Several commenters chimed in that they felt the same way. And let's face it, we live in a world full of deadbeat dads, absentee parents, divorce, you name it. Even those of us who had wonderful fathers (like mine) still didn't have perfect ones. How can we learn to trust God when we can't even trust our own parents?

Well. As it happens, one of the subjects Jesus just couldn't stop talking about was His Heavenly Father. Even on the night He was to be betrayed and killed, He took the time to tell His disciples about their Father and what He had promised to do for them. And if you're having a hard time trusting Him, maybe it's time you took a hint from Jesus. (This, by the way, is exactly what I once heard my own father recommend to a young man who was in much the same position.) Here's what I think Jesus, the Great Physician, might recommend for your heart:

Prescription:

Take your Bible.

Open it up to John's Gospel, chapters 14-17.

Read it. (Rather quickly to get the big picture.)

Read it again. (Linger a bit more. You'll find several phrases that speak directly to you. Dwell on them.)

Now take a pen and a pad of paper.

Go back to the Gospel again, and write down every answer you can find in these chapters for the questions:

What is the Father like?

How do we know the Father is like that?

What does the Father promise to do?

Let the answers overwhelm you for a while.

Then go back and do it again, because there's sure to be something you didn't see the first time.

Then again.

Keep the list. Add to it.

Read it again.

Come back to it until this passage of Scripture is as much a part of you as your heartbeat. (You'll know.)

Possible side effects may include tears of unbelievable happiness, peace, decrease of fear, and the kind of joy you didn't think was possible this side of heaven.