Sunday my friend and pastor Steve Wiens recommended three prayers for Holy Week this year, including: “God, reveal where I’m hidden and help me to see.”

Shame

The shame of a wounded conscience is a trap. It’s a lie that tries to convince us that hopelessly defective: “I am what I am. I cannot change. I am hopeless.”

Shame is the deep feeling of guilt, sadness, and hopelessness that we experience when we become convinced that our shadows, scars and scandals doom us. That past failures, bad habits or poor appearance has made a permanent scar on our self-worth.

“Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

I love that quote.
– Do you wish that you had a trustworthy father figure? Find one.
– Do you wish that you had an affirming father figure? Find one.
– Do you wish that you had a playful father figure? Find one.
– Do you wish that you had a wise father figure? Find one.

If I was looking for a father figure I would look in a good church. Honest.  Regardless what you’ve heard, there are many good people in good churches who are making a positive difference in the world. 

When did your parents say nice things to you and about you? How did you feel? Or, sadly, maybe you can’t think of a time when you parents gave you positive attention.

Robert McGee wrote, “Every rejection reminded me that as a child I had never experienced the love from my father that I wanted–that I deserved.”

“When father/child relationships become seriously distorted, children lose perspective. They cease to feel valued and valuable. Having learned that more is required than merely being, children soon turn to doing by trying to behave in a way that pleases the parent.”

Yesterday I proposed that what comes to mind when we think of our dad, our father, and our father figures, contributes to the trajectory of our lives.

SUPPORTIVE Perspectives

Here are four philosophical perspectives that supportive my position.

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.
– Sigmund Freud

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.
– Carl Jung

The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.
– Benjamin Spock