How does a young person think about fatherhood? Feat. Andy Lamberton

Maybe fatherhood is something that you have never thought about before, but we need to stop and recognise Fatherhood as apart of the eternal personhood of God and from that see the necessity of it within the creative order.

In this podcast we explore how we should think about fatherhood and why we should think about it from the earliest age.

Transcript

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WILDFIRE, the youth branch of Hope to Families, seeking unity and community, helping people come to know Jesus and pointing people to the local body. So, Act 1, Scene 1. Welcome back to another podcast. Straight in, transition, from what we were talking about, Andy. Who are you for people who don't know who you are? Sure. When I wake up in the morning, I sometimes get a kiss from my wife. Sometimes I don't. So I'm a married man. Whoa, let's go right into that. Why does she not kiss you? I'll just continue on with my day. And then go downstairs. And sometimes our two sons are up. So I'm a father of two sons. And never are my two daughters up. So often go upstairs and wake them whenever it's time for school. So Mario to Debbie, she is fantastic and a great kisser. And then with four children, Peter, Sarah, Matthew and Hannah. So Sarah was nine yesterday and we had a party for her, calling the caterpillar kick. not Cuffbird, I don't know if he's still in the go or not. I mean, calling the caterpillar is an absolute classic. Sarah, do you want the head or do you want the bum for your birthday? That's what I asked her. Golden question. She went for the head. Good, good. It'd be weird if she went for the latter. And I grew up as a farmer and still enjoy farming, but the farm's ongoing. I've moved into mission work with Exodus, a fantastic organization to work with. Love. Love working with Exodus really and have a real passion for local churches and really want to see. I want to see young people who realize that as God looks at them, He sees such potential. And He longs to call them into His kingdom. And He longs to see young people living a life. all its fullness. You know, life isn't an anticlimax or anything like that. Life's for living and it's for living with Jesus and Jesus invites us to come follow me. And I am convinced that there's nothing this world has on offer that even comes close to Jesus's invitation to come follow me. It's by far the most attractive thing this world has ever seen. And so I don't know if that tells you I'm a husband, I'm a dad and I love Jesus and partial to a bit of farming. That is a brilliant biography because most people, whenever you ask that question, they might say, you know, like, I love like the green jelly babies, you know. OK. Which really does give you a lot of insight into a person, but I love your description better than that one. So what? ministry do you specifically do because that will give explanation as to why we're talking about the podcast topic that we're talking about And what ministry do you find yourself focused in at the moment in conjunction with Exodus? Yeah, which should shout out by the way Yeah, so I've been doing youth ministry for maybe vocationally for 10 years. And then whenever I was farming, I would have taken a day off each week to kind of go in the schools and do stuff like that. And it's been one of my observations as I work with young people that we live in an under-fathered society. And so that simple conviction, it's also one of my convictions that the voice of parents is a key voice, in young people's lives, it is defining on them. And so of course, it's great to have good schools, it's good to have good schemes to get people into employment. But God creates us within families. He doesn't create us. through a programme or through the government or through a school, as good as those things are and all of that. God creates us within families and He calls us to grow up within it and He calls us, for me as a parent, as a dad, He calls us to lead our families to His glory. It's almost like the family is God's plan for bringing up young people. And it's like as someone in youth ministry, I missed that for a while. And so I'm a real believer in age specific youth ministry programs and churches. Love the youth club, love the fellowship, love outreach programs that reach young people, you know, where they are as they are. But I suppose there's this kind of fundamental question of, man, we live in an underfather society. as I looked around, I'm like, who is thinking about how we help invite? Because there was plenty of people patronising Father saying, oh, you should be, you could be, and the word should just riled in my skin, kind of curled my skin on the inside. And I was like, why are we not just simply inviting? And instead of saying you should be, you know, a better dad or whatever, just saying you can be. You know, the invitation is there. And And so really the start of legacy came out of honor of a great father and a great risk taker and to kind of to invite fathers and to give fathers a vision, myself included, for becoming disciple makers in the home and joining the, we want to see faith-filled families and want to see whole families come into Christ. want to see families following Jesus together. Yeah, I could keep talking, but I want to stop for your... And so legacy is what is birthed from that, which is, it's honestly amazing. Yeah. It truly is. And people should go and look into legacy. Is there anything specifically on that you want to say as it relates to legacy? Yeah. Well, we've pitched ourselves as a program provider for churches. There's lots of ways you could start a ministry and contribute to the body of Christ and contribute to society. And kind of as we have begun, we're like, right, the Church, God is working through his people. The Church is a family of families. What if we offered programs to churches to help faith and fatherhood thrive? And so if you went on to our website, for example, LegacyFathers.org, it says up the top, we provide programs for churches to help faith. And fatherhood thrive. And I suppose we want to help churches across Ireland and further afield stand for what's important. And I suppose over the years, Christians have seen something in scripture and then they see its absence in society and they choose to act, you know, and we choose to bring God's goodness and God's plan. and God's vision for how the world should be into society. We choose to announce His good news. And so for example, in the past, we read about human dignity in our scriptures, you know? That is a profoundly and only Christian, Judeo-Christian idea. We see its absence or we see its slave trade and we see the slave trade in society, people buying and selling humans, you know? And so William Wilberforce, John Newton and all their colleagues choose to act and they abolish the slave trade and they bring a sense of human dignity to society as a whole. Or we see that the world is understandable in our scriptures and that the same God that created my mind is the same God that created the cosmos. And so, you know, through science and exploration and discovery, I can figure out how to send a rocket to the moon or I can figure out how to plant crops. And so we see that the world is understandable in our scriptures, and we maybe see ignorance in our society, and so we choose to set up schools and universities to educate people. And I could go on and on. We see that God cares for the poor and for the sick, and so we build hospitals. And as I look across society today, whenever I read scripture, I see family all the way through it. I see that family is God's plan. I see that we're created within families. I see that, I mean, read the Psalms and you'll just say it says from one generation to another. It'll say that in nearly, you know, nearly half the Psalms will have some reference to the generations in it. And so I see that riddled right across our scriptures and I see families breaking up. I see families not even starting. And I see this kind of demise or... of family in our society or absence of family in our society. And I think as churches we should stand and we should act. And Jesus's way was not to complain but to compel. So Jesus invited us. He was the only one that could have come down and said, you're not living the way you're supposed to. But he came down and he said, come follow me and I'll show you life and life in all its fullness. And so I think as Christian people who understand the value of family, who are following a God of whom family is his idea, I think we need to say to our community, come and be part of our church, come and join a couple of programs and we will help your family thrive. We think family is important and we want to give it space to thrive in our society. And I am yet to meet any father. Every father I meet wants to do the best they can. I would volunteer for a prison fellowship. I would know a vast variety of fathers from across the demographics of society, if you like, and every father I meet wants to do the best they can. Every father I meet has a deep love for their children. And of course that can get twisted, you know, and so on. And we have examples of bad fathers and bad families within our society. But ultimately God longs and loves to see families thrive and thrive in faith as they as they follow him. So I've forgotten the question, but that's where we've got to. It's great. That's you, that's legacy. And if you haven't already guessed it by the title of the podcast that you clicked and the opening, we are talking about fatherhood. But specifically from the vantage point of, I'm a young person, Andy, okay? And a lot of people watching this are young. I'm talking like anywhere between 12 up to 24, you know, why? Hello. Why do I need to know about fatherhood? I mean, let's be honest, like I'm just thinking about A levels or GCSEs or I'm going to university and I'm enjoying my life. And there's a plerathora of other things that I should be thinking about except fatherhood. Like that's on the back burner for me. That's to come whenever the time comes and I have a child in my hands. That's when I'll start thinking about fatherhood. And what would you say to those people? Yeah. There's a number of Psalms in the Bible that, so some Psalms are like, down you Shechem, and Shechem's a place, or like talking about a certain person or a certain wall or like the streams in the Negev, or you know, it references places or people or towns. But there's a number of Psalms that have no reference to places or people or towns. They just celebrate God. That's all they do. And Psalm 103 is an example of that. If you know the song, bless the Lord, oh my soul. So it's based on Psalm 103. So like- Cause your voice is like honey. So like, do you want to sing together? No, my voice is the opposite. So you're rich in love, you're slow to anger, your name is great and so on in the second verse there. And then even that chorus, bless the Lord, oh my soul comes from Psalm 103. And in that psalm that is only, all it does is celebrate who God is. It says this, it says, As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. So you think about, in this case David's writing the Psalm, he has all of creation to pick a metaphor for what God's like. And he says, do you know what God's like? He's like a father. That's what he's like. And of course, God confirms this title. So actually in the Old Testament, we've just got a couple of references to God as Father. But then as soon as Jesus comes on the scene, he almost explicitly only calls God Father. And so when he teaches us to pray, he says, pray like this, our Father. And it is fascinating, heart breaking and humbling. It is all of those things to realise that God looks across. He wants to reveal himself to us. And of course, he does reveal himself like, you know, he uses all sorts of pictures, like a shepherd, like a rock. I am the helper of Israel. You know, he gives us lots of different pictures, but I think you could, if you're a Bible reader, you could probably say that primarily God reveals himself to us as Father. And so why should we be interested in fatherhood? Well, because interestingly, sometimes before Father's Day, you'll get an email if you're on a marketing loop of a company and it says, we know Father's Day is difficult for some people. So if you don't want to receive Father's Day marketing emails, please click here. So you can kind of opt out of that. And father, for a lot of people, can be a bad word. And such is our brokenness of our society. And so I think actually to try to honor fatherhood, we're actually trying to honor the main picture that God gives us of who he's like. And so God's honor and God's name is to do with this. This is fundamental to our theology. And as you know, evil forces try to diminish the main pictures that God gives us, you know, to try to ruin his name, if you like. I think there's a little bit of that going on and we could dive into that, if you like. Like a key story Jesus tells is of a loving father who has a broken family and he's the one that tries to bring it back together. One of the sons runs and the other son refuses and to the by saying he's the God who runs to the son who ran away and to the son who refuses got the father and the story goes out in reasons with him and tries to call him back in. And both those sons represented two of the different listeners at the time. But we could probably see ourselves in one of those two sons in our own testimonies. And God runs to us or he comes out any reasons with us and he welcomes us back in. And I suppose. we would probably call ourselves children of God, mostly, you know, maybe Christian might be the main phrase we use, but children of God, the Father of Jesus, those would be the main ones. And so we should be interested in fatherhood for that reason, because God introduces himself to us as a father. Why should we be interested in becoming fathers? Maybe that's the, you know, a question of like, so what age do you look? 23 and you're about I think you're about to be 24. I'm about to be 24. Yeah, do you have a girlfriend? I do. Yeah excellent and And so I think it's a great aspiration to want to be a dad Blessed are the pure in heart theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled and If you're a girl who wants to be a mum when you grow up I think you fit into that category. I think, you know, what more noble of a role do you want than welcoming life into the world? And if you're a young man who wants to be a father when you grow up, you know, imagine like if you're going around to primary school saying, what do you want to be when you grow up and you get all the different answers and then a young boy just says, I want to be a normal dad. Imagine that. Like, and that, what an ambition. You know, Billy Graham, he said that a good father. Is one of the most unsung, unherod people, and I'm kind of paraphrasing the quote now, because I can't quite remember it, but he is he's one of the most unsung heroes of our society, and yet he is our most valuable asset. A good father. I think that's true. I can't think of any, know that I am a father, I can't think of... I can't think of a role I've ever held that has more significance than what I do with my children. So you're saying I'm listening to this. I mean, all the people listening to this are humans. That's probably a guarantee, unless Elon's brought an alien back from Mars, which I doubt it. All of us are humans and you're saying. That's a good place to start. I know, right? You're saying that all of us are humans have within us. The greatest objective of mankind is to know God. grow closer to God and glorify God. And it is impossible to know God, grow closer to God and glorify God if you don't know him as father. As you just rightly highlighted, that is one of the main ways that he reveals himself. That's right, yes. As his father. And so why engage in this topic? It's to fulfill or attain the objective of mankind. which is to know, grow and glorify God. So that is the invitation in this podcast. And every time you explore fatherhood, you're getting to know, grow and glorify God. And then you talked specifically about, what about becoming a father? I mean, for men, that is such a noble thing to want to strive towards. And... if that is the noble thing that we're striving towards, like any occupational profession, I mean you start, if it's GCSE's A-levels University, there's a preparation before you actually get to the profession that you've desired. And so with the noble calling of fatherhood, there's a preparation that should take place before that. But I love the way that you didn't just segregate the audience, that this is just a male audience that should be listening to this, but you're saying as women who want to be mothers, if you want to be a mother and fulfil that noble calling. then don't you want an amazing father to accompany that? And how it's this dual relationship. that's needed, but with all of that in mind, how on earth do I actually engage in this then? Because you've highlighted the importance. I thought you were gonna say how to become a father. Yeah. It's a different podcast. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, I see the importance of father. I wanna get to know God more as father and relate to him in that way. I also see the importance of preparation of fatherhood. I, a woman listening to this podcast, also see the importance of knowing what a good father is that should be accompanying me in my noble task as motherhood. How do we engage in this topic as young adults? I mean, where do we go from here? It might be worth saying that you're a complete person, you know, as God has made you. I mean, we're broken people, you know, so we're born, but because of our sin, our purpose is skewed, our relationship with God has been broken. and our identity has been distorted. But then in Christ, that relationship is then brought back together and restored. Our identity goes from being distorted to now being clear. We understand who we are in Christ and our pure purpose straightens. And I suppose. As I. I suppose I just want to highlight that. That your. You're a complete person in that sense without being married. You also have a complete marriage without having children. And that's really as a... There's lots of different journeys that happen for people who want to have children and some people longing for children and can't have children. And then we've got lots of surprise pregnancies and so on as well. And so there's a whole mixture there. It's just worth kind of articulating that because it's actually easy on your side of fatherhood to think, yeah, I want. Yeah. And that's what we'll do. You know, and often the journey is much more complex than that or different or so on. And it's worth it's worth noting that as we talk about, you know, God has created us in families and. family is a God idea that it doesn't mean that necessarily if you end up not being able to have children or whatever happens, that doesn't necessarily mean you don't have a complete marriage, you're not a complete person or anything. So wait, let me get this straight. You're telling me that I can't pencil on a date when I can just have a child? So like the 27th of January in 2027? That's not how it works. Yeah, you could pencil on a date to try. But yeah. So your question was What kind of what's our starting place if you wanted to dive deeper? Is that the nature of your question? How do I engage in fatherhood? Like, because I don't want to. I mean, do I go to father seminars and stuff? And whenever the church announces like this is for fathers, like, do I go to that? Do I start reading books by fatherhood? Do I start listening to podcasts? Like, I don't want people to over index on it. And like every waking moment of their life, it's like, I'm just learning about fatherhood. I'm preparing for fatherhood. But then I also do want people being like. I'm not thinking about it at all. And I'm wondering, like, I don't know what the balance is. Yeah. Like what's the balance and what do I read? What do I not read? What do I do? What do I not do? Yeah. Uh, good fathers become fat. Don't tell me that. That is, good fathers become faithful. They become available and become teachable. And you can carry that on in your life at the minute, as it is. But as you see, what I'm trying to aspire to as a dad myself, is I want to be faithful to God. I want to be faithful to my family, to my church, to my employment. to military roles and responsibilities. You know, you could, if you want to create a hierarchy, you could do that, but we could just list all the things. So I want to be faithful to God. I want to be faithful to my family. You know, if you want a good life for your kids, love your wife, you know. If you want a good life for your kids, be around them. You know, if you want your kids to have faith, have a faith yourself, you know, but to go through your acronym. So I want to be faithful to God, to my family, to my church, to my employment, you know, and other responsibilities. Then I want to be available. So as a Christian, I want to be available to God. God, you can do whatever you want with my life. I'm completely yours. You know, I want to be available to my family. I want to be there for them. I want to be available to my church. If that is putting out chairs on a Tuesday night, or if that's going to visit and someone who's just been hit with tragedy, I want to be available to my local church body. And to my, I want to be available to my employment and so on. And then I want to be teachable. So I want God to teach me. So the beauty of the Christian life is that you're never alone. So the Holy Spirit, how do you become a good dad? Listen to the Holy Spirit, you know, and become teachable to God. Become teachable. If you want to know how to be a good dad, well, listen to your wife. You know, become teachable to your wife and to your family, become teachable to your church and teachable to your other roles and responsibilities that you have. So that kind of little acronym, good fathers become fat. It's helped me. It's memorable because often you get a dad bought whenever you become a dad. And then so we laugh at that. I think to dive in a little deeper to How do we be father figures? What is it about a fatherless culture? So what's missing if dad's not at the table? What's missing in our lives if we, if you're listening and you don't have a dad, you don't know your dad? If you know your dad was a disappointment or a mixture of both, they're a little bit good, a little bit bad or mostly good, sometimes bad. You know, your whole mixture, there's no perfect people, but you have a whole mixture of stories that will be represented and everyone is listening. And if I could try to summarise what it is to be a father, I can think of no better sentence. than what God the Father chooses to say to Jesus. The two times that we hear him speak in scripture directly to Jesus. So he speaks twice. He speaks at the baptism and he speaks at the transfiguration. And both times he repeats himself. So that's fascinating in and of itself. He doesn't. Jesus at the baptism is about to kick off in his ministry and he doesn't say You know, like he could have said all sorts of things. He could have said, follow these 10 steps to build a successful ministry. He could have said, watch out for Judas. He could have said, you know, countless things, but he chooses to say, this is my son, whom I love with him, I'm well pleased. and at the transfiguration he adds, listen to him. And I think within that we can look at what it is to be a father. So this is my son. God the Father gives Jesus a sense of identity. And as fathers, I mean traditionally a father would name the child if you like and I think there is something unique that a father and a mother can do where they say, you know, your dad for example could say to you look you're being yourself today or if your dad sees you not being yourself Your dad could say, I don't think you're being yourself. Now, do you have any idea the length of time a youth leader or a teacher or a friend has to spend with someone before they can say those kinds of words, or think you're being yourself or you're not being yourself? And so fathers and mothers, I think uniquely help children with their identity. And so in an under fathered society. You've probably noticed in organizing youth programs, we really need to focus in on identity because we are an identity-less people. We don't know who we are. We don't know where we're going. And I think that's one of the symptoms of an under-fathered society, is that we don't know who we are. No one's telling us. And so God the Father chooses to say to his son, this is my son. Next up, he says, whom I love. And ultimately, like deep down in our lives, and look, this will be the same for you. You're wondering if you're known, if anyone really knows you. I mean, not the podcast facade, never mind the look facade, never mind the mask that you could take off under that, but the real you that's way inside that no one else has ever seen. You're wondering if you're known. And then your second question after that is, and if anyone did know me, would I be loved? And the answer is yes. God loves you deeply. And a father knows you. Whenever I think of parents, they know you. They know some of the stuff that no one else knows. And they probably know more than they let on, earthly parents, you know? And God the Father knows Jesus. And he chooses to express his love to him. And we can assume that people know that we love them, you know, in terms of being a father figure to someone. I could assume that my children know that I love them because I pay the bills and because I'm, you know, whatever. But God chooses to express his love and to express it affectionately. And so I think one of the roles of a father is one, to give people their identity, two, to express affection towards them, to say, I love you. So God says, this is my son whom I love, with him I'm well pleased. Sometimes my children will wait for me to come home to show me something. What's going on there? Why are they waiting to show me something? It's because they want to hear me say, well done. That's good. I like that. It's because they're looking for affirmation from someone who really knows them and who really loves them. And I think it's part of the father figure that we help people with their identity. We express love to them and then we affirm them. We say what is good in them. My son Matthew came up to me, but it's only like three days ago or so, it's just at the weekend. And he said, dad, what am I good at? And then I paused for a little while and then he actually said, I'm good at comedy and I'm good at Lego and I'm good at cycling, but what else am I good at? And Matthew 6 for context. But I think deep down, children are wondering what is my contribution to the world? What am I good at? And then finally at the Transfiguration with Peter, James and John listening. God adds the line, listen to him. So that's clearly addressed to Peter, James and John. And I think what's going on there is a wee bit like, let's say someone passes the business on to the next generation, to their son or their daughter, and the accountant or the salesperson comes in the next day, but the business is passed on the day before. And so of course the salesman would go to the old man, but then he says, no, you have to go to my daughter now. She's the boss. And so it's interesting that the voice from heaven, the one who's been kind of revealing himself throughout the Old Testament. Jesus is now there and God points at him and says, listen to him. Now, if you look at how Jesus saw his ministry, he whenever he begins his ministry, he quotes from Isaiah and he says, the Spirit of God is on me because he has appointed me to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour, to proclaim freedom to the captives. And so Jesus saw his role as proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, that the kingdom of God is at hand. repent and believe the good news. And God the Father chooses to speak right into Jesus' calling and to the audience that they had, he says, listen to him. And I think part of the role of being a father figure is that we help our children or those who were a father figure for with their sense of calling. What am I here to do? What's my purpose? And so those kind of four things, you can hover around those if you like. And we help people with their identity. We help them know that they're loved. And if you are their dad, loved by you. And we help them with their, we affirm them and who they are. And we help them with their sense of calling. And of course that'll span out wider. So for girls listening to this, who won't be fathers, but may well be mothers, that works for you. But also for in an under fathered society, in a world that doesn't know who they are, doesn't know that they're loved. doesn't know that who they are is someone of importance and doesn't know a sense of calling their purpose in life. We can affirm those things within our youth groups, within your friendship groups. You can send people a text message and say, I mean, I would be careful with the one, I love you, you know, but I'd probably go for, do you know that God loves you and that you're loved? Good things to say. And you'll see that each of us, those are the kind of primary questions that we have in our lives. And I think. father figures uniquely placed, or should say parents are uniquely placed to kind of declare those things over their children. And if you're a young man aspiring towards fatherhood or wanting to be a father figure for those who have none, that's a good verse to kind of meditate on and then just think, how can I help this person with their identity? How can I help this person with their sense of calling? How can I affirm them, tell them that I'm proud of them? And I can somehow express affection towards them. So you're saying that regardless of whether you are a father or you're becoming a father or really regardless of what the context is to which you're listening to this podcast, be fat, be faithful, be available, be teachable. Start that now where you're at, start the journey now. And you're also saying that know your own identity, know your calling, be affirmed in who you are and also know that you're loved. And then in turn, once you knew all those things and are practicing those things, then start to think about the neighbor around you and start thinking about, do you know your identity? Do you know your calling? Do you know that you're loved? Did you know who you are and that you're affirmed? And obviously you enshrined all of that in the eternal relationship between the father and the son. And that story that you highlighted from the gospel, which is amazing. Do you have... What is a lesson that you have learned as being a father from fathers? Like what's your top lesson that you want to give? And if you can't reduce it down to one, I'll give you space for two or three of Andy's top lessons in fatherhood. Okay. My mind, my mind is quite, this might not be revealed so far in this podcast, but my mind goes to the practical very quickly. So whenever you say what's your top lesson, I'm instantly thinking of practical things around having children and, and around helping them discover faith and so on. And so one of them, okay, I'll pick one. I'm nervous of the word top tip. So a tip. is to view your day as an act of worship. And so life isn't about speeding it up. Life isn't to get done. And I carry a diary in my pocket. But. Life isn't a to-do list, it's try to tick off. You know, an inner diary, it's not, you know... But life is to be lived for the glory of God. It's a worship service. And within your life and for parents within the home, you can introduce your day by reintroducing yourself to God. Hello, I'm yours, you're mine. I mean, what an amazing truth. And I'm gonna live my day for you. And I wanna live it in worship. and enter your day with that spirit. Then as you go about your day, your day becomes less about, you know, if you like, people outside of Christ, multitask and try to do everything. And Christians who are living their life as a light, act of worship, they still do a lot of things, but they, instead of trying to do a lot of things at the same time, and it's exhausting, they do a lot of things in a row. as an act of worship. And so today, as I was trying to clear the inbox and my emails, I can do those things, I try to do those things as an act of worship. And so your day becomes punctuated with moments where you're grateful for what God is doing in your life. And then at the tail end of the day, at the very end of the day, try to give yourself a sense, like a bit of a benediction. I would go around the kids and speak a blessing over them at night to kind of close in the day. And but even if you're just yourself, even if you're a single person living on your own, nobody else is around you, you can still live your day as an act of worship. Open the day by becoming calling yourself into worship, you know, and calling yourself into the place where you're aware of the presence of God and where you want to live your life for His glory. And then allow your day to have moments with God in it, all of that. And then at the end of the day, give yourself a sense of reflection, a little moment where you We say, well, the Lord has blessed me today and Lord, I want to be a blessing in your life. Night, night. So that kind of sense of introducing, you know, when you're a dad and a mom, you get to introduce people to life. What is life? And I want my kids to know that life is lived to the glory of God, that it's lived in the place of worship. And yeah. So if I could speak personally here, and I think this will resonate, I think it's true of everyone, if I'm being honest. It's like worse for people who don't know that it's true of themselves. But I don't know, sometimes it's easy to like, having like knowledge of this topic, like view it as a topic and like fatherhood. and look at all the scriptures that I know about Fatherhood. I knew the theology behind Fatherhood, but I feel like there's just in my own life, like a disconnect. to experiencing him as fatherhood. I find it hard to believe. I find- A disconnect in experiencing God? Yes, father. Keep going. Like for example, whenever I read his words and how he talks about himself and how he talks about himself to us, this is an example of one. So it could be like you're sitting in a prayer meeting or in church or someone brings it up and it's like- Yeah, just read it. See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. So, like I know I'm a child of God. I know he's my Father, but it's... I know there's always gonna be more because he's infinite, but... It's just him loving me as a child. I think of seeing, like I have a father, okay, but even if you don't have a father, seeing father relationships play in society or whatever that looks like. I look at it the way my father loves me and just seeing that visibly day by day. seeing it in his actions and in his words and also just being moved just at different points. Like he could just be lying in bed and I just look at him and I'm just filled with a love for him, a lovely house for me and I just have an experience of that and then I keep like these scriptures and the whole experience is like that's a picture but I'm like... I don't actually know at times if I have faith. I'm just gonna say it. Yeah, please do. I don't think I have faith a lot of the times that my father loves me the way he says he does. Because I mean, if I did. I wouldn't live the way that I live. Because you're trying to prove yourself? Yeah, or I could just be in sin, but I wouldn't sin again, not if I was just embraced and loved by the Father. And I think whenever I'm trying to prove myself, or I'm in sin, or these are all symptomatic problems of, I think, not living on you. The status given to us, the love lavished upon us by Father. Yeah. I just... Well done. What would I do? Yeah. Well, I just want to honour that you got there. Well done. I mean... Yeah. And I think that's a question. You're right that we all have. Um... The love God has for you on one level is really plain. He would rather die than not have a relationship with you. He's the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. But the relationship that you're articulating, that you're hungry for, it's a little bit like when... Abraham is called the friend of God. You're like, whew. Friend. to him. Jesus in John 15, he says, I now call you friends. And then just after that he says greater love is no one than this than the one who lays down his life for his friends. And uh... I think we do this simultaneously all the time, but we can flatten God into an explanation. And there's plenty of explanations of God available for 8.99, you know, with 300 pages. And we flatten them into, I think we should know about him, but we flatten them into explanation. But another place we can go is that we treat God as a celebrity or... So... as a bit of entertainment, you know, or something like that, or as a giant battery force who might, if we say the right words, get on our side, if we could only network with them the right way, or something like that. And those are two things that we fall into as Christians, and maybe see saw back and forth, you know, sometimes we're saying a prayer, we're answering our own prayer. It's like, God, I know that you're a God who does this, and so I'm asking you for this, you know, and then in the other side, we're desperate for God to move in our lives. And so we're like, We're asking for something that is miraculous or would really make our ministry or our life easier. And so we're saying, God, would you bless this or heal this or do this? And so we're expecting this kind of giant battery to zap us somehow. And yet, in the mix of all that, and God comes close to us not because we're good at praying, but because he's good at coming close to us. He answers prayers not because we found the right words, but because he wants to answer our prayers. And in the mix of these two places where we could flatten God to explanation, or we could... Firework God into dazzlement. God says. I'm like a father who wants to get to know his children. I'm a shepherd that knows his sheep. I'm a friend. I, uh... and I want to get to know you. And a friend like a father or I'm a groom and you're the bride, you know, those are some of the main pictures we have in scripture. And all of those relationships only work when time is spent. And... If you can push past the boredom of sitting on your knees for more than 10 minutes and push past about three weeks of that, slowly I think we begin to learn how to pray. And we pray with our Bible open. We pray with our ears open. We don't just assume we know what God's going to say. I think that's the temptation of the person who falls into the explanation. viewing God as a category. Nor do we take from God what we want. That's a person who is looking to God for entertainment or for a sign or something. But we begin to actually wait on God. And if we can truly wait rather than assuming, then I think we can truly receive rather than taking. And we can come to a place where we know Him and can really hear from Him. And I think the Bible, it's easy to look down on people in the Bible. You know, I think it's a popular preacher thing to do, be like, well, these guys were... But when you look at the stories in the Bible, something that they have in common, the great people of faith that are documented in our scriptures, they're people who really knew God, who heard from Him, and then lived their lives out from that place. Take any of the great characters in Old Testament, Daniel, Moses, Abraham, Elijah, David. These are people that knew God and spent time with him. And, you know, David, a man after God's own heart. Moses, the man that's seen God face to face. Abraham, the friend of God. I mean, what titles? What? Imagine someone, you know, near the end of your life, you know, do you know? Do you know what Luke Taylor's like? He's like God's friend. You know, what an amazing ambition that would be to have. And I think it's about openness. I think it's about humility. I think it's about submission. see what kind of love the Father has given to us. that we should be called children of God.