Blogmas 9| Whose Your Daddy?

It is one thing to know of God. Then there’s to know God for yourself. I grew up hearing about God, I heard stories about God and I knew what he was to everyone else. However, all my life I felt God pursuing me. I always felt this draw toward God but at the time I felt I was too young to serve God and I would serve him fully when I turned 30. I felt that was the age when you got serious about God because by that time I would have already done everything that I wanted to do. That was the age where fun was starting to slow down and I was all out of fun and obligations so I could now give myself fully to God without feeling I had more living to do. As I look back even if I had waited until I was 30, that would not have been a sacrifice. It would not have been a sacrifice because I would have come to God when I wanted too and when the time was best for me. But the only goal of a sacrifice is to give up what you don’t want to give up for something greater.

God captured my heart at the age of 25, he said to me, “the time is now”. And without delay, I had a disciple “come to Jesus” moment. I forsaked everything and followed him. No longer could I live off of mama and grandma stories, God was calling me into a place to know him for myself. God wants a personal relationship with every single one of us. God wants to meet your individual need. You are so unique to God and the way he spoke to those before you may not be the way he wants to speak to you. You cannot have a relationship with anyone through a surrogate. The surrogate is there to be the mediator or vessel to bring you into connection or intimacy with what you have been waiting for. Point being, a surrogate mother. She carries your baby for you so you can one day hold in your arms your bundle of joy. She is there to bring you two together.

All the stories, testimonies and prayers of others are to bring you together with God. They were intercessors to bring you into a relationship with God for yourself. The surrogate cannot carry what is intended for you forever. There is a time when you step in and cultivate what they carried for you for yourself.

The relationship is available to you right now, it is yours.

I heard growing up, “Our Father, which art in heaven”. But growing up I never saw God as father or daddy. I saw God as God, yes he spoke to me but at the time I thought it was just me. I saw God as distant and hard to love, relate too or touch. The foundation of my belief about God was rooted in my own dysfunctional relationship with an absent father. My father was not around so why would God be around? Call God dad? How? When my natural father was not a good father. Why would I want to relate to that. My natural father missed my high school and college graduation. My natural father missed my proms, accomplishments, parent teacher meetings, birthdays, maturity…you get the picture. If he missed these things, why would God have been present for them? He is God for goodness sake, too busy for earthly things, so I thought.

I saw God that way because the face of my father was on God and I felt because my natural father was like that, God was too. But as I got to know God for myself, He taught me that he was not a reflection of my natural father and that fathers were to be a reflection of Him. He asked me to take the face of my father off his face so I could see him for who he really was too me. So this was a very private moment between me and God but this year, he brought a greater depth to that conversation.

I attended a conference called Publishing in Color, which is a book conference for minority spiritual writers. At this conference are authors, aspiring authors, established authors and big and small publishing companies. This conference is a platform to bring authors together with publishers with classes and one on one meetings. I sat with one publisher and she asked me to share my story in which I did. I told her my story on the verge of tears because I was unlocking from within me how God was there all along. She proceeds to tell me a story herself. She shared with me one night she was watching TBN and it was a segment of a man talking about the love of a father. By the way, she and I shared the same story. Anywho lol and she said that the man said, all this time you have been looking for a father and I have been your father all along.

Tears just began to roll down my face and in that moment, God started sharing with me with that all the times I thought I was alone and all the times I was afraid, he was right there. High school graduation and college graduation with my BS in Accounting, he was right there. Prom, he was right there. Nights I cried myself to sleep because men and friends hurt me, he was right there. All the times you were looking for a dad, I felt God whispering to me, “I’ve been right there”. I knew that God was a father because I read that but it is another thing when those words go from head knowledge to a heart awareness.

Now that I know God is my father, I can confidently say that I am his daughter. Growing up I always wanted to be a daddy’s girl and now I am. I am definitely a daddy’s girl and I am becoming more and more like my father as we journey through life. Our father is the God of the universe and he cares about everything that concerns us. I said knowing God as father has changed my life. Meaning…whenever I come up against anything too hard for me, my response is my daddy got that. Whenever I am low on funds, my response is my daddy got that. I do everything with my father and when he tells me something I believe it with all my heart because when he says something to me it is sure to come to past. I can go on explaining this forever but I will close with this, life is so much better doing it with a father. Sometimes it is hard to explain but I will say this, come try it for yourself. Don’t just know him as God, know him as DADDY.

His baby girl,

Te’Aire Griffin, Founder/Visionary Restore Mon

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