Nourishing hearts as faithfully as we nourish our tables.
Welcome to Season & Savor Sunday — because feeding our bodies is not enough.
I’m sitting outside as I write this, in that quiet before the rest of the world wakes up. A hummingbird just made its rounds at the feeder. The flag is moving in a soft breeze. The trees are doing that slow, easy sway. Birds are singing somewhere behind the fence, and the billowy clouds are lazily drifting across the sky with that glow that only comes from dawn.
It’s a good morning to think about fathers.
My dad has been gone over twenty years, and I still miss him. He wasn’t perfect, not even close. But he was good, and I knew he loved me, and I know I didn’t do anything to deserve a father like that. Not everyone had what I had. I know that.
And here’s what I want to say to you if you grew up with a father who hurt you, or left, or was just never really there: I see you. Father’s Day can be a hard, complicated, conflicted day for some. That’s okay.
I’ve been doing a study on the Lord’s Prayer through the Bible Project (if you haven’t checked them out, please do, I’ll link it at the end), and one thing stopped me in my tracks. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he didn’t say my Father. He said our Father.
That one word is doing a lot of work.
It’s plural on purpose. It’s an invitation. It places you inside something bigger than your own family history, your own painful memories, your own complicated feelings about what a father is supposed to be. Our Father draws a circle wide enough to hold all of us.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
Matthew 6:9-13 (NIV)
Seven requests, and seven is no accident. In scripture, seven is the number of completeness. Nothing missing, nothing left out. The first three orient us toward Him in praise and honor: His name, His kingdom, His will. The last four are petitions on our behalf: give to us, forgive us, don’t lead us into the test, deliver us. He’s not asking us to earn anything first. We come as we are, with our needs, and we call Him Father.
And the name Jesus uses for God? In the original Hebrew, LORD is Yahweh, which comes from the verb to be. The great I Am. Not distant. Not absent. Not a harsh old man in the sky waiting for you to slip up. Present. Right here, right now, in this breath.
I know that if your earthly father was cruel or cold or checked out, the word “father” might make you flinch. It might actually make it harder to trust God, not easier. That’s not a faith problem. That’s a human, honest, completely understandable response.
Psalm 68:5 (NIV) says this: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling.”
Not a substitute father. Not a consolation prize. The Father. The one who was always meant to be there.
And then there’s Romans 8:15 (NLT): “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.'”
Abba. That’s Aramaic for daddy. Not Lord. Not sir. Daddy. The one you run to when you’re excited or scared, hurt or just happy. When you need comfort, or answers, or simply to know someone is there.
Too many of us picture God as a stern old man, arms crossed, keeping score, waiting for us to mess up. But that is not the God of scripture. The God of scripture is the father in the story of the prodigal son, the one who watched the road every single day, who saw his son coming from a long way off because he was watching for him. He didn’t wait. Didn’t make him finish the walk. Didn’t let him get through his rehearsed apology before the embrace. He ran, and culturally speaking, that was shocking. A man of his standing didn’t run. But he ran anyway. He threw a party. He said, my son was lost and now he is found, he was dead and now he is alive.
(Read the full story in Luke 15:11-32.)
That’s the Father who is looking for you today.
He loves you so much that He sent His one and only Son to die for you. For me. For your neighbor. For your enemy, as hard as that is to hear. Not because we earned it. Not because we got our act together first. Because that is simply, staggeringly, who He is.
You were always meant to have a father like that.
So on this Father’s Day, whatever your history looks like, whatever comes up when you hear that word, I want to gently offer you this: you have a Father who knows you by name, who knew you before you were formed in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), who never leaves, who never runs out of good things to give, and who has been watching the road for you.
And if you have or have had a good dad, an imperfect one who showed up anyway and loved you well, don’t let today pass without telling him. Call him. Write him a letter, an actual letter, and tell him what he means to you, what he gave you, who you became because he was there. Those words matter more than you know. Don’t wait until he’s gone to wish you’d said them.
The hummingbird is back. The sun is all the way up now. Go look for Him today, especially in the small things. He’s there.
And Abba, Father? Would you tell my dad Happy Father’s Day today?
Happy Father’s Day, sweet friends.
Bible Project: Lord’s Prayer Reading Plan via the Bible App on YouVersion
~ With grace at the table, and beyond
I read and respond to every email and comment, and I’m so thankful for each of you who comes back week after week. It means more than you know when you make my recipes and share your thoughts 💚
Colleen Henry
Thank you for the wonderful Season and Savor:Our Father writing you sent us. I was fortunate to have had a Dad who was always present and loved all five of us kids unconditionally. Your writings made me appreciate him even more!
Thank you Colleen — all glory to God!