“And a voice came form heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1.11
One of the greatest principles that I’ve learned since I’ve been on the journey of spiritual formation for over twenty years is learning to see myself the way Abba Father sees me.
Abba Father delights in his children. I experienced this delight in many different ways, but one of the most sacred times happened recently on a trip to the beach with my bride. Through some good friends, we were recommended to stay at the beach for a week with a ministry called, Shepherds Care.
A week at the beach with my bride. No kids. Enjoying great food. Relaxing at the beach. Yes, please.
Adrienne and I had looked forward to this trip for almost a year after being notified we had been invited to come away and rest and enjoy many of the Father’s good gifts. After arriving at the beach, we visited with the founders of Shepherd’s Care, Joe and Patti. As Joe and Patti shared the heart of Shepherd’s Care, they both referenced how the heavenly Father loves to lavish his children with rest and good gifts and this was the heart behind shepherd’s care. They wanted to walk us to the beach, pray with us for the week of rest, and commission us to rest.
As we walked onto the beach I got a deep sense of the Father looking down at me with pure delight in his eyes saying to me, “Well done, Danny. I am deeply proud of you and fully delight in you for your faithfulness to the message of my work of reconciliation.” As we stood there looking at the beach, the waves, and the blue waters of the ocean, it was a sacred moment.
It was a sacred moment because embracing the Father’s delight over me has been a struggle my whole life. The core lie I carried from my family of origin was that I was a failure to my earthly father, and to any early father that had authority over me. I always felt like I was letting them down by goofing off, getting terrible grades, not doing a chore well enough, etc.
I over compensated by becoming a performer, mostly in sports. I felt like if I worked hard enough, those father figures would be happy with me. That core lie was never healed until through lots of hours alone with the heavenly Father in the scriptures, many conversations with Adrienne, a lot of time in counseling, and working It out in community with some close friends. Don’t misunderstand me, that core lie is still there and will always be there until when Jesus comes again, but now I know what to do with those voices when they pop up.
But for many of this, this is not how we view ourselves. We view ourselves as failures, as not quite good enough.
There’s a deeply moving scene in NBC’s, This is Us on a Father’s delight over his children. In this scene, Jack, who’s the father is filming his daughter, Kate singing. Kate has a beautiful voice and has repeatedly asked her dad not to film her because she’s embarrassed by the way she looks. Kate’s character struggles with her weight throughout the show.
Jack is constantly telling Kate how beautiful she is, which Kate replies with, “Dad, please stop. No one views me the way you do. It’s time that you accept this reality.” Later in the show Kate finds the video of her being filmed signing and the look of delight on Jack’s face.
Kate then approaches her dad and says, “Dad, please don’t stop reminding me of the way you see me.” And this is exactly how Abba Father views us! He delights in us and longs to give His children good gifts.
The reality is this. The Heavenly Father is deeply pleased and impressed with his children. We don’t have to do anything to get His attention, because His attention is already fixed on us with pure delight in his eyes. He looks down at us like Jack looked at Katie and says, “I love you so much and I fully delight in what I’ve created!”
The Heavenly Father speaks the exact same words over us that He spoke to his son in Mark 1 as Jesus was baptized and came out of the water, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” I find it fascinating that one of the first works of the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus was to remind him of his belatedness. Paul says the same thing in Galatians 4; “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
Let this reality sink in for us. God the Father sent the Holy Spirit into our lives to remind us of our belatedness in order that we can now call God, “Abba, Father.”
Family of God, know that we have a Heavenly Father that looks down upon his children with pure delight in his eyes and is so impressed with what He’s created! We are not failures. We are his beloved children that He fully delights in.