The Fatherless Generation

Among the fatherless and loveless world,  You alone are our hope.  A wasteland of broken hearts and dreamless futures-You alone are the light of Truth.  For such as these, flower petals drift in the wind, and their fragrance unnoticed.  The edge of life cuts deep and scars obliterate what sunlight passes through, O tough exterior and tender longing soul! 

Do you not know the love of God? Ever-present, tender and full of pity? What has become of His first family? Brother murders brother and the heart-retching anguish of mother and father for having lost two sons.  Such self-centered islands battered and eroded over time.  But You, O Lord, are a safe haven in the midst of the storm.  A friend to the friendless, a father to the fatherless, a husband to the widow, a comfort in covenant.  You heal the broken hearted and bind up our wounds.

O, Love of God, gather us for we are cast adrift in this heartless world.  But You, Emmanuel, are with us.  You will never leave nor forsake us.  Your steadfast love endures forever.  We were abandoned by mother and father.  Our families’ were ravished and homes destroyed.  Our tender souls found no comfort, yet You were never afar off. 

Healer of our souls, O sweet Lord, speak the Word and we each shall be healed. Our enemy bound the strongman and trampled our homes.  In the gail and stinging hail, You drew us to Yourself.  You spoke these words to our hearts “Though mother and father forsake you, I will never abandon you, I will take you up as My own. I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you. I am the Lord Your God, I have redeemed you and have made you Mine.  See, you are engraved in the palms of My hands.  You are the apple of My eye.

Then joy found a place in the misery.  O Father God, rebuke the adversary, the accuser of the brethren who accuses night and day and shrouds Your children in shame and guilt because of the sense of abandonment and sin.  May the accuser be weighted down with the very cloak he uses to obscure our sight. May the enemy be ashamed who seeks to afflict Your children, may he in proportion bear that same affliction and see that Your heel overshadows his head.

Such taunting godless voices, heaping mire upon Your children.  Have mercy upon us, O God!  The accuser of the brethren plays upon the damage emotions of Your children and plagues them with unrest.  Cast off this enemy once and for all!  Speak peace, speak life, speak joy to our hearts.  Let us know Your warm embrace.  Let us know You, O God of Love.  You have made us accepted in the Beloved, You have done this wonderful thing, no one can snatch us out of Your hand!

The enemy supplants and grieves us saying “it is never enough…you must keep trying…you will never be accepted by God…”. But You, O Lord, bid … “Draw near, My children.  No one ‘earns’ love, this sort of earned idea of love, is not from God.  I Love you, and have chosen you and all the soil of the world is cleansed from you, for in Christ, you have been cleansed and reconciled to Your creator.  I have loved you with and everlasting love.  Even before you were born, before time itself, I have loved you.”

The enemy targets the children of God, for he is envious of their place in His divine Love.  The enemy hates the children of God, yet his hatred cannot overpower God’s love.  In fact, his hatred is like the scorching heat of the sun in drought, driving the roots of the tree ever deeper into God’s love.  As a deer panteth for the water-brooks, so our soul panteth after God Himself. How our soul thirsts for God in this dry and thirsty land!  The lies of the enemy cannot supplant the truth, but drives the thirsty soul to drink from it.  O thirsty soul, hear the Word of Truth and drink its life giving water.

God loves you.  From the beginning He had a plan to rescue you and sent Jesus of Nazareth in order to redeem for Himself, a people of whom He would call “My Children”,  “My Chosen”, “My Elect”, “My Redeemed” and the blood of His only begotten Son eternally testifies that we are His, and His alone.  O soul, how true this is that your Father is the creator of all things in heaven, earth, and sea- visible and invisible, and His redemption is eternal.  Your inheritance, soul, is in God.  You are sealed, you are secure in Christ.

Know this, that the love that you could not find in another battered soul, you have found in Christ.  Open the gates and let the King of Glory in, the Lord of Hosts, so that He will make His abode in you.  Not that you have done anything, nor will do anything deserving of such honor, but because of what Jesus Christ has done. Even while we were yet steeped in sin, Jesus Christ laid down His life, and died for the ungodly and then called us individually, by name.

Why do you doubt, O you of little faith?  It is you He is calling.  Step out of the boat, and He will uphold you.  He is calling to you…yes you!  None of that insecurity and shame is from God,  that is a lie designed to keep you from God.  Ignore the accuser, God does.  Your spotless wedding gown is in Christ.  In Him, you are reconciled without having done anything at all, but to have placed your trust in Him.  Leave your life of sin, and have new life in Him.