The Heartache of Fatherlessness

 

It was Father’s Day again. Greeting cards had all sorts of amazing Dad messages like, “You make this family fun,” and “There’s no better role model than you,” and “You’ve always been my biggest supporter,” and “You bring so much joy into my life.”

Flashy advertisements honored dads with sales on new lawnmowers, new BBQs, and new camping and fishing and hunting gear. The butcher section at the grocery store anticipated a busy Father’s Day weekend with discounted meat nestled in ice. Clothing stores proudly displayed their best t-shirts emblazoned with “Just a Dad who loves his girl,” and “Father: a son’s first hero, a daughter’s first love,” and “Dad Joke Champion.”

For many people who have a difficult relationship with their father – or don’t have a father in their life at all – the greeting cards stay on the shelf. They walk past the new lawnmower or fishing poles because that new stuff won’t be received the same way it was intended. Some hearts hurt all day because they can’t avoid restaurants and city parks where happy families celebrate someone truly taken for granted.

Deep down, all children want to be loved by their father, even if they barely know him, but many fathers don’t fit the happy norm. Fathers are an important part of God’s design for families, and when fathers are missing or hurtful or narcissistic or arrogant, they misrepresent what God intended fathers to be. And sometimes the contrast is huge between God’s design and formative experiences.

Psalm 103:13 says, “Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.” A father’s compassion toward his children is assumed by God. This is a natural connection. When compassion is lacking, children are understandably angry against such injustice.

Malachi 3:17 says, “They will be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.” A father naturally prioritizes and protects his son, and something is dreadfully wrong – even ungodly – when a father turns against his own children.

1 John 3:1 says, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.” True love is love because of identity, not performance. When a child has to earn love, suddenly love becomes an unstable impossibility – and skews his or her understanding of God’s love.

Even the “normal” father of Matthew 7:9-11 can be terrifying for someone who regularly receives “stones” and “snakes” from the “benevolence” of a manipulative father: “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”

But the Bible doesn’t just compare our relationship with God with ideal fathers. The Bible also uses broken family situations with real heartache and real loss to pull our hearts to a Father who fills our longings more than any father figure could.

Psalm 10:14 says, “You have been the helper of the orphan.” Psalm 68:5 says, “A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, is God in his holy habitation.” Not all orphans have deceased parents. Some orphans are “fatherless” and now face adulthood alone, but God sovereignly plans circumstances and relationships in their lives to help them. He satisfies their sense of injustice with hope that He will vindicate them somehow.

Malachi 4:6 provides a glimpse of the Messiah who would reverse the curse in families and “restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.” When family members are transformed by the Holy Spirit through the power of the gospel, they will also love start loving each other as God designed them to do.

Hebrews 2:10-11, describes Christ as an older brother who is unashamed of sinners – even broken, messy, dysfunctional sinners – and saves them so that He can bring them to God as His children: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the originator of their salvation through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for this reason, He is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” God cares about the distress of broken families, and He cares for them through the care of His people. Our real “family” is so much bigger than our biological one.

Even Jesus knew what it felt like to live without a father. His stepfather, Joseph, followed the Lord, cared for Jesus’ mother and siblings, and taught his Son a carpenter’s trade (Matt. 13:35). But at some point, Joseph vanished from Jesus’ story. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus had no father and was responsible for His mother even up to moments before His own death (John 19:26-27). But from an early age, Jesus claimed God as His true Father and refused the identity of “illegitimate” or “fatherless” (John 8:41-42). 

“Fatherlessness” doesn’t have to define us for the rest of our lives. No life is permanently ruined by a father’s failures and sins. The book of Proverbs is a great resource, not only for fathers who are trying to live out their mission but also for children who are trying to follow that mission, whether their fathers teach it to them or not.

The mission is simple: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). Whether our father is the wise man – or foolish man – of Proverbs, we can seek true wisdom through a perfect heavenly Father who is everything we need, who provides everything we need, and who loves us so much that He willingly gave His only Son so that we could be adopted and treasured forever.

2 Corinthians 6:18, “And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty.

John 1:12-13, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Matthew 18:3, [Jesus said] “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We may have a father who says unkind words or manipulates our words against us. We may have a father who is abusive and provokes us. We may have a father who wants nothing to do with us, or has abandoned our family, or comes in and out of our lives like a tornado taking and taking and leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. As Christians, how do we honor these fathers as the 5^th commandment says (Ex. 20:12), yet also stand for truth?

Genesis 9:20-27 gives the example of Shem and Japheth who honored their drunk father by turning their faces away and dealing with their father’s sin. They didn’t ignore Noah’s sin, nor did they mock him as their younger brother Ham did. So too, we can choose to forgive the failures of our father, the absence of our father, the hurts and disappointments from our father, and call sin what it is (truth) without compromising grace and compassion (honor). James 1:3 reminds us that our heavenly Father promises to give wisdom to those who ask by faith, and in these difficult situations, we definitely need supernatural wisdom.

There is nothing random about our journey. God is always with us, as a father ought to be. Through Jesus Christ, we have a new family name – “Christian” – and we can walk confidently in that name because of our Father’s love for us (2 Cor. 5:17). We are free – even commanded – to love Jesus first, even over family, and don’t have to feel guilty for it (Matt. 10:37). Through a biblical local church, we can seek help from spiritual fathers – godly, humble men of faith – who can advocate for us as the means by which God protects the fatherless (1 John 2:12-14).

And when a father breaks his child’s heart, whether intentionally or not, our heavenly Father promises to heal it with His love again and again. Psalm 34:18, The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.