I long to be able to worship someone. I always have. I want someone in my life who will fulfill my every need. Someone who will understand my desires before I even know how to express them. Someone who will always be willing to meet me where I am. Someone who will never judge my dreams. Someone who will protect and provide for me. Someone to be a shelter for me in every storm of life. Someone to treat me like I am the most valuable thing in their existence. I long for a relationship where fear does not exist because the other someone in the relationship is such perfection that I have complete security.
I long for a god I can see. I have my whole life. I have a brokenness within me. In the world, this brokenness is known as daddy issues. I have a lot of daddy issues. But let’s face it, we all do. No matter how amazing our temporal father may be, he is not a god. He did not provide all those things in our developmental years because he could not. He was broken, too.
Over the course of the last few months, God has begun to have this conversation with me in a whole new way. At least it is new for me. The biggest hole I feel in my life is that of a provider. I desperately long for someone who is willing to make the sacrifice of providing for my material needs. A physical being who acknowledges I am worthy of provision.
This longing has plagued me my entire adult life. In my personal story, when I made the decision to seek God and give my life to Christ, I gave up a major piece of financial security. I gave up knowing if there was a group of people I would ever fit with again. Those decisions meant I must be my sole support forever.
But I have not ceased looking for someone to care enough about me to provide for me. This emotional battle has followed me through college and careers and the last few years of not knowing how I will continue to pay my bills. In these last few years, God has broken down all kinds of fear within me.
I wish I could tell you I trust Him now, but really I am just at the beginning of this journey. Just at the very beginning of experiencing His provision. I really should trust Him by now. At every point in my life where I have put the kingdom of heaven first, He has provided for me. Sometimes miraculously. Often through teaching me I do not need as much as I thought I needed. So much of His training me to trust Him has been through teaching me to sacrifice. It is through sacrifice I have learned I actually only need Him.
A couple weeks ago, a verse came to mind I have never understood or been able to apply to my life. Jesus tells his disciples at one point to call no man on earth their father. This direction of Jesus always confused me. Wouldn’t it be insulting to call our earthly fathers by their first names?
But a few weeks ago, I understood it for the first time in my life. I have been looking for a father. One of the key roles of a father is to provide for his children. I want a dad. I want someone who tells me he has my back if I screw up my own efforts for provision. The reality of my situation is I have no one on this earth, not even an employer, to fulfill that desire.
“Call no man on earth your father” has been going through my head the last few weeks. I have a new understanding of the relationship Jesus calls everyone of His disciples to have with God. Every disciple is called to look only to God for their provision. Probably because in some way we all end up worshiping the object from which we think our provision comes.
Someday I will no longer long for a God I can see because I will see Him. Faith is a belief in things unseen. In heaven there will be no need for faith because I will see Him. In the meantime I will continue to long for a visible God. For the separation between the visible and invisible to disappear. He will continue to build my faith through sacrifice and miraculous provision. Today every longing of my heart can only be fulfilled by One I cannot see. But soon enough when this life is over, my God will be as tangible as this computer upon which I type. Until then, may I call no man on earth my father.
Who do you believe is your provider?
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