Father to the Fatherless

One of the biggest factors that puts a child at-risk for entering into the sex industry is not having a father at home. The role of a father is to LEAD his wife and children, PROTECT his wife and children, and PROVIDE FOR his wife and children. When the father is absent, it leaves the wife and children vulnerable to purposelessness, abuse, and poverty.

And most of the kids I work with are fatherless.

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a couple of the girls from our prevention program, and they started talking about their dads. One of them, a ten year old, assured me that when she says, “my dad,” she really means her step-father, because her step-father has been more of a dad to her than real dad.

She doesn’t even know who her real dad is.

The fourteen year old girl eating with us then spoke up to say that her dad didn’t even sign her birth certificate.

While they were talking, I was thinking, “How in the world will these girls know they are worthy of being loved if their own fathers haven’t loved them? Will they ever believe that there are actually men who don’t abandon their families?”

I told the girls that God is a really good dad to us. I told them that He’s really good at taking care of us, and no matter what our dads are like here on earth, God won’t ever leave us. And then they chimed in by saying, “Yeah, He won’t ever leave us or forsake us!”

That’s right. They quoted Scripture.

Whether fathers like it or not, they give us a picture of what God the Father is like. And that’s why so many people have warped beliefs about who God actually is.

If our earthly fathers abandoned us, we probably will have problems believing that
God actually WANTS to be near us. And if our earthly fathers beat us for no good reason on a regular basis, we will probably go through life believing that God is in a bad mood.

But God is in a good mood. He really is. And the truth is that He’s gone to great measures to be with us. The veil has been torn. We have 24-7 access to His presence because of Jesus.

Wake up, Church!! We are the priests. We are the ones who get to lead the fatherless into the presence of God!

Often, when I simply ask God what’s on His heart for the kids I work with, I get this picture of the Father sitting criss-cross-applesauce (to be politically correct), and all of the kids coming into His lap. This is the heart of our good Father! He wants the kids to climb up into His lap, and just rest for a while.

There are no orphans in Daddy God’s lap.

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” Psalm 68:5