TOOL #7: Heaven’s Help

To be the best earthly father you can be, you need help from the Ultimate Father.

“I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10, NASB

“I grew up in a totally broken family. My dad was an alcoholic and an adulterer. But by God’s grace—and with His help—my wife and I have four wonderful kids, aged 10 to 22. And nothing could be better than that.” Daniel S., New York, New York

After reading the title of this chapter, you might be saying to yourself, Yes, of course I need God’s help. Or perhaps you are asking yourself, What the heck does he mean by “Heaven’s Help”? No matter what your reaction to this chapter’s title, I hope that you will hang with me here. Hear me out at least by reading the whole chapter. Then, if you want to dismiss these ideas, at least you will have heard me out.

The title of this section means something very simple: Are you willing to ask God Almighty to help you be a better dad? You and I might have a different understanding of God and how to do that, and that’s okay. I’m not claiming some kind of divine mandate on my understanding of God—and I’ll bet you’re not either—but one thing I’m sure we both agree on is that we could use some heavenly help on this fatherhood thing. Here’s the good news: The Bible portrays God in many ways. But one of the many amazing things about the New Testament is how Jesus teaches us (many times) that God is our heavenly Father. Unless you’re a scholar of comparative religions, you might not immediately grasp how revolutionary this was . . . and is.

Two thousand years ago, most human beings worshiped a wide variety of local and regional idols. Think of the old Greek and Roman gods like Zeus or Neptune, which still have a (small) place in modern memory. These gods were capricious, unreliable and competitive with each other. Many had to be appeased with human sacrifices. And none, absolutely none, was portrayed as being our “heavenly Father.”

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