Daddy~Really?

Thinking about the word daddy or dad or father in relationship to God is an awkward thing at times for me. As I look over my childhood my natural father was not in the picture very much. It was not that he did not want to be, it was because my family member would not let him be there as he wanted to. This was hard for me to understand as a child but I got used to not seeing him except at holiday functions and an occasional visit or funeral. I remember taking my best friends dad an kind of making him my father too because I wanted someone to be a father figure to me (jealousy). I do not remember ever expressing this but it was there in my heart. I grew up going to church and hearing, learning, and teaching about God as a father but never really connected this deity, being, father to a personal level. God in the back of my mind was untouchable and he did not have time to be with someone like me. I again attributed God love for me to the love my physical father had for me and that was occasional.
As I grew up my biological father actually came to live with me when I was 17 years old and I remember the first thing he said to me in conversation "I am your dad but I need to know who you are so I want to be your friend. I can't teach you about being a man because you have become one. All I can do now is guide you to making smart choices." This statement helped our relationship to grow tremendously as we only had a year together before I was to leave and join the military. He never talked to me about God but would often talk to me about traveling the world and getting out of my hometown or else wind up like that people that should have left there but are now stuck. Wasting their lives drinking and squandering relationships in order to get high.
So at a cross road in life I had a chance to meet someone who would teach me about a relationship with God. Not like the one i grew up with, but a deep personal relationship with God and eventually the Father that I always wanted. I took a lot for me to shake the religious beliefs I had about God off and really make him my FATHER! I still struggle to talk with him at times because of my pride but just like my biological father he is always there even though I did not see him much. God my father has never left my side and he has always strove to be with me. I see that I have become much like my family members who did not want my biological father around when I am in sin or afraid to face something and I push God my Father away by not talking to him. And All he wants from me is to be my Friend! Today I can call God Daddy, Father, My Father in Heaven because I have faced the pain and the guilt that used to separate us from connecting. But just like any relationship I have to work hard at maintaining it.

To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ (Jude 1:1)

~Holla at me~