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Hello, my name is Elias DeHora, you can call me Eli. If you're listening in on today or watching today's message, I'm with Therapies Counseling. I am a Christian counselor, author, and speaker, and today I wanted to talk about our earthly fathers and our heavenly father, and the impact that our earthly fathers or any parental figure really has with our worldviews and our perspectives towards our heavenly father. Now, here's the truth, earthly fathers have a divine responsibility to guide their children, and here's another hard truth. Not every single father really is deserving of the father title. There's a lot of people out there that they may have been part of the process of giving birth, bringing life to children, but it doesn't necessarily make them a father because they're not being present, their role as a father is not really being enacted in the household or in the child's life, and I can speak from that from personal experience. So when you're hearing this, there's probably a lot of you guys probably thinking, well, my father was always there, I was able to speak to my father, great times, but there may be another side of you guys that are probably thinking, I didn't have a father growing up, or I did have a father, but I have no idea who he is, or I did have a father, but he went away, he's no longer in my life, and I know that sometimes those are some hard discussions to have, and that's why I wanted to bring up this topic so that while you are hearing what I'm going to be teaching on today, you can reflect on some of these things and as well as trust and believe that your Heavenly Father has no even running race comparison to your earthly father. So in the scripture it says in Proverbs 22, 6, it says train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. There's a responsibility for parental figures, especially fathers, to raise up a child in a way that they're not going to depart from the Lord, in fact, they know God's words and they are learning. A lot of us grew up in an environment that maybe that we were raised in a Christian home, we were dragged to church, but not necessarily taught the word at home. I can also speak from experience on that as well, and then sometimes the parental figure may feel like they did their responsibility. I wanted to chime in on this aspect because a lot of times we want to blame our parents or our fathers for things that didn't happen, or things that should have gone in a way that they should have gone. A lot of times in my counseling sessions, I tell people like, listen, your mom, your dad, your parental figure, whoever they may be, they did their best. And then the counselee will be like, they'll kind of be a little bit taken aback, even though they just kind of shared with me all these horrendous things. And I explain to them, my definition of best means somebody doing something to the max capacity that they can, that's their best. And a lot of times parents, they don't know what they're doing. And in fact, they're probably still children mentally, emotionally themselves. So a lot of us grew up with parents that they had to learn on the fly. And unfortunately, sometimes what they learned was things that they just repeated that was done to them that was wrong, and they repeated the process to their children, or they learned from other behaviors, or it was bred in an environment where that's what they became. And it's not to excuse their behavior or their action in no way whatsoever. I tell people in my counseling session, your emotions are valid. What you said, I hear it and I see it. I'm so sorry what you went through. But there needs to come a realization that we need to stop blaming our parents and it's try to move on from what has happened. And part of that process is placing our parents maybe off of a pedestal or off of some type of emotional or mental authority that we have been carrying in our hearts, in our lives. We've given them this foothold in our lives to carry. And as adults, we're carrying it everywhere we go. To some of us, it may feel like some type of those comical bubbles that pop off to the sides of people's head. And then we hear our parents' words, whether they're good ones or bad, whether they're encouraging or making us feel put down. And that starts with recognizing, man, my parents, they did their best and in a way that they only did what they knew what to do. Nothing more and nothing less. Could we have wished it turned out differently? Yes. Could we have hoped that it could have been a lot better experience of a childhood? Yes. Could we have hoped that they would have stood up for us when they should have, to protect us when they should have, to lead us when they should have, to tie our tie, help us to teach our tie, help us to change the oil or take us, drop us off at a practice? Yes. All those things, all those answers, yes, and I'm right there alongside you. But as adults, as us, we are trying to move forward in our lives. We need to understand that our parents are human, just like us, and given the circumstances that they may have been raised in, given the circumstances that we were born into, that's the cards that we were dealt with. And sometimes we have our family members, they're still around us, and we may still be harboring bitterness and anger and resentment. And I can tell you, in the latter half of the game, in the latter half of life, it's hurting the person holding onto it a lot more than it is the person who inflicted the pain initially. So as I'm sharing this part of the message, I want to encourage you, if you're holding on resentment, if you're holding on to bitterness, that your parents didn't train you up in a way, as the Proverbs said, I invite you to just release that bitterness, release that anger and frustration, not for them, but for you. Because you deserve to live a life without feeling like as if you're carrying it all for them and for you. It was a divine mandate, you know, in Proverbs 22, verse 6, to train up a child, you know, that fathers and mothers, they're supposed to be guiding their children, and it was supposed to be a reward. But a lot of time, that's not the story. Now don't get me wrong. There are a lot of experiences where fatherhood is shown to the max capacity. Sometimes a role of somebody who wasn't a biological father took on that role and killed it. They did such an amazing job, and they left a lasting impact on your life. I always share with people that sometimes I don't know whether to start a college fund or a therapy fund for my children, because I know as a parent, I'm going to screw them up somehow. I'm just going to do my best. So part of my responsibility, and if you're on the side of being a parent already, our responsibility is to be intentional, is to learn, is to break habits that were not effective in the past, in our own lives, and in their lives, and in bettering ourselves every single day. And I want to talk about right now real quick about our Heavenly Father. You know, God's love is eternal, and it's unchanging, and it doesn't change as well to the title of Him as our Father. As the Word of God teaches us, you know, our Father who art in Heaven, and it's said multiple times throughout the scripture, and Jesus Himself refers to God, Jehovah God, as His Father, as Abba Father, as His dear, intimate Father, and we can also call Him that as well, as our Abba Father. I want to share with you in Psalm 86, verse 15, it says, But you, Lord, are compassionate and a gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love, and in faithfulness. I love that verse because, man, if that's my Father in Heaven, He's slow to anger, abounding in love, and faithful. And I know that may be sometimes, may be triggering to some people hearing that because, you know, what they immediately want to do is like, man, but my earthly Father is no way near that. He's no way near in that type of capacity or understanding or loving. He was always angry. He definitely didn't show love. Maybe He did love me. I don't know. He didn't. I would not have known. And faithfulness, forget it. He wasn't even faithful with our family. So why, so maybe that these words are very hard to understand. If you grew up in an environment where your father role figure was always angry all the time, was always, did not show any type of love towards you, whether in truth or in careness or in discipline, in any type of way, and there was no sense of faithfulness, meaning broken promises again and again. And we need to recognize that sometimes in our lives, that a lot of times that our experience here on earth will taint our views of heaven, will give us a filter and a perspective of God, of His promises, of who He is and everything that He has to offer for us, but that we accept it in a way that is half-hearted. As if we can't take these words to the bank. So then how can we, and trust me, I get it. I grew up in an environment where my father was not around a lot. He didn't keep promises. So then when I got to know God, you know, through His Son, Jesus Christ, it was so hard for me to understand that God loves me just for me, that I didn't have to do anything. See with my earthly father, I felt like I always had to prove something, I always had to make him see me, to make him hear me. And sometimes it was really bad in the ways that I did it, but other times, the majority of the time, there were good, but there was never enough, there was never enough. And I wonder if there's any of you hearing this and watching this, that you feel that. You feel that even to this day as an adult child or as an adult parent, where you feel that people-pleasing symptom, where you feel that wanting and needing of acceptance. And then even when you walk with God, it always feels like you're walking around eggshells because you have to prove something. Well, I want to break it to you. I want to break you some, give you some good news. And the good news is that according to the Word of God, it says that God is compassionate. He is slow to anger. He's abounding in love and He is faithful. And it's not because of that scripture alone. It's because of recorded history in the Word of God and how it's showing time and time again from the book of Genesis, all the way to what it's going to be prophesized and revealed and all the way to the book of Revelations. And even now, as people share their experiences with God, man, God is so good. This is what's happening in my life. When I'm in His presence, this is what's happening. It's just like in another Word of God, another scripture says, taste and see that the Lord is good. A lot of us have not even given God a chance. He's a God of our parents and that has tainted our views in a relationship with Him or our perception of Him, maybe there isn't even a relationship because of our experiences here on earth. Well, I want to invite you to learn the depth and the consistency of God's love and to see how God's love is so different from human love. In fact, the word love for us, as we conceptualize it and think through it, we are using our education and our experience to try to understand what love is. And so when we take that type of limitations within the box type of thinking of what love is and then we try to apply it with our relationship with God, we are already missing out on everything that God has for us. We need to understand the love of God that is unfailing, that is slow to anger, that is abounding in love. That doesn't even sound like anybody here on earth. But through God, through His Holy Spirit, we can live in this. For me, I've recognized even in my own life as a child, as a teenager, how while I was battling the in-between of my own father, earthly father's acceptance and his love, I realized the impact of God's love and how He never abandoned me, how He was always there for me. And how even my mental and emotional wealth, the way it was affected, I was depressed, I was suicidal. I just did all type of things when I was a teenager looking back. It was definitely... not good choices, obviously. And it was just a cry for attention. I just wanted somebody to see me. I just wanted somebody to hear me in a way that I wish that my earthly father would have heard me and seen me. And the closer that I got to God, when I realized like, man, God, according to your word in the book of Romans, that even when I was a sinner, Christ died for me, meaning I didn't do anything to deserve your love for me. I didn't need to. That's amazing. And the more I understood that, the more that what I understood that what Christ did, he equalized everything at the cross and he destroyed sin, he destroyed shame. I was able to surrender everything, every broken part of me, every open wound of me onto God's presence, onto Jesus Christ's feet and experience his love and acceptance. So I don't wanna just be talking about, oh, the goodness and the feeling. I wanna talk about also like how it's a real thing for us to have emotional wounds, even as adults, how we can carry emotional and mental wounds from the past, whether it be trauma-related or through an experience. And how do we find healing in all that? Especially as Christians, that we're called to live a certain way, but then the devil, the world, and even our worst parts of ourself, our inner critics remind us of the past and all of those feelings are relived as if it just happened yesterday. The first step is to acknowledge that they're there. It does no good for us to not acknowledge that there's a wound in our heart because of a father figure or parental figure or somebody. And we gotta take a stance and we're like, man, this is getting in the way of my relationship with God. This is getting in the way. And God, you moved heaven and earth to be with me. And then all I need to do is open my heart, open my life to you. But here's the thing, guys. I know for a fact, I have experienced this too as well. And I've seen it in people in counseling session. We close our hearts. Even as Christians, we close certain doors in our hearts. Like, oh God, I'll accept you as my Lord and Savior, but hey, no, don't touch that one room. No, we're not going down that way. Let me give you a scripture that says, in Psalm 34, 18, it says, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit. It's one of my favorite verses. Sorry, it's one of Jackie's favorite verses. My wife, her story, her testimony is amazing. And even when we were into our marriage, we both realized, not just her, me as well, how broken we were from our past, our past relationships, our past family experiences in general. And it was only when we drew near to God, and as he was drawn near to us, did we feel whole, did we feel complete. But there was a certain time when we needed to say, God, I'm also surrendering this part of my life, this experience that I had. God, I'm broken. It's our recognition to know that we're broken and need somebody to fix us. Not just anybody, but the one and only Savior. The only one that could. The only one that was tempted, so he knows in the ways that you have been tempted. The only one that suffered, so he knows in ways that you have suffered. The only one that went through death, so he knows the experience of what grief, what it brings, what it's resulted, everything. He knows, and that's the part where we need to connect ourself with God, with Jesus Christ. He knows what you're going through. And then some of us are probably thinking, well, why did he let me go through it? Why did he let it happen? And that's an honest, brutal question. But I do challenge people where it's like, God didn't let it happen. He didn't authorize such a thing. And I let them understand, and same way I'm gonna let you understand too, we live in a fallen world. Ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed and sin entered this world, and the consequences of sin is the wages of death. And death is just the final part, but before all that is just all the consequences of sin in a way where it brings grief, it brings hurt, it brings pain, it brings destruction, it brings lies, it brings cheating, it brings affliction of pain. Again and again, all of these things. All I know is I am one for grateful that he actually kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, because I realized when I was studying that scripture that there was two trees that was very specific in the book of Genesis. There was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which we all know that's the tree of the fruit that Adam and Eve ate from. And there was the other tree, which was the tree of life. From a theological perspective, we understand that it was basically a place where God was present too, walking amongst Adam and Eve, being with them, having a relationship with them, but then disobedience entered into the picture. God couldn't hold a gun to the head and force them to say, do you love me, yes or no? It had to be genuine, had to be authentic. So then there was this scenario played out so that it was a free will. And that's the other thing, we live in a fallen world that free will still exists, which means we are still responsible for the consequences of our actions and decisions. But here's the thing, there's a sovereignty as well. See, the second tree, the tree of life, was from the understanding of the scripture, was supposed to give basically our understanding what immortality is. It was to give the eternity and forever part for Adam and Eve and all creation. But thank God, Adam and Eve didn't get to that tree because can you imagine them being disobedient and sin taking place and now they're sinners, just sinners just like you and me, and then they actually make it to the tree of life. I can imagine sin living forever, sin for all eternity. Man, that sounds horrible. I want you to reflect the struggles that you go through. Imagine that being forever, that death is not a separation between it stopping or going, it's just forever. There is even love and compassion when God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden because he enacted and he had a plan for us to still have the eternity aspect through his son, Jesus Christ, but he had to take care of the sin part first. And that's what Jesus Christ did. And that's what he does. Jesus Christ took all of our wounds, our transgressions, our mistakes, our past, future, present, everything, and laid it on a cross, crucified it. And now he invites us to draw near to him even as broken as we are. Because sometimes being broken also means without the feelings of being empty. And when God empties us out of sin, of destruction, of the ways of this world, there needs to be a filling in. There needs to be, and he's saying, fill yourself up with me, with my Holy Spirit, with my word. But what happens is we still have free will, we still live in a fallen world, and we make decisions that affect not only us but others. See, the emotional wounds we carry and the impact on our lives, it runs deeper. And if we really have self-awareness and intraperspective on how we are, why we are, and that's what I do in counseling. I help people understand why they are the way they are, in a good way and in the ways that they need to improve. They come to me in moments of crisis, in moments in tears, and I am reminded time and time again how God is still present in these moments. How God is our ultimate healer. And all we need to do is just have an open heart and open mind. I wanted to come to an end, the conclusion on this part, because I don't want to share everything I just shared and not have an opportunity for us to, okay, how do I take these steps? How do I surrender or give open my heart to God? You just need to say yes. You just need to say, Lord, I want you in my heart, I know I'm a sinner, and I repent of my sins. Teach me your ways, not mine. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. I know that sounds wordy, but basically, you just gotta say yes to Jesus. Taste and see that the Lord is good. I know that's a weird analogy, but that's in the word of God, a word of, in the scriptures, I believe it's a proverb, and it just basically says, look, just try. Trusting in God leads to a place of peace and fulfillment, of wholeness. Humans always walking around, what's our purpose? What's our purpose? Well, we were created to worship God, and people are saying, oh, but that sounds like a one-way street. I promise you, it's not, because as we worship God, he fills us up with his peace and understanding and just hope and love, everything that, who he is, and gives us hope and allows us to live our lives in victory and in abundance. In Proverbs 3, verse five, it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. I wanna invite you to trust in God that sometimes the way we're hardwired was by force, and our understanding of things is excute, and we need to have a humble approach and open up our arms and our hearts and say, God, here I am, heal me. God, here I am, show me. God, here I am, lead me. And we just give surrender and complete control over to God. He knows what he's doing. His sovereignty is amazing. It doesn't feel like a master type of servant relationship or yes sir, no sir type of deal, but rather it's one where you can call God in the moment that you need him. And even in the moment that you think you don't need him, he's still gonna show up because he knows what's best for you. So I wanna pray with you and just invite you to surrender this week to God. To God. Remember that he draws near to the brokenhearted and he's there for you. He's not against you. He is for you. He's not gonna abandon you like any other earthly father would. And he doesn't lie. And what he says does come to pass. His word never returns back void. Amen? So let's pray. Heavenly father, thank you so much for this time. This time that we get to learn and reflect that yes, we live in a fallen world, but we know that you are sovereign. Yes, we have free will. And yes, we choose you God. Help us to surrender every single part of our lives, every single part of who we are and mold our hearts, mold our lives into you God and what you have for us. So we can live in the fullness and the out of the abundance that you have for us here and now. We ask that you may remove thoughts and that you may remove anything out of our lives that is not pleasing to you. That you remove everything out of our lives that is hurting us, but we can't see it. And honestly, if we're being stubborn about it, that you may wake us up, give us an enlightenment or conviction by the Holy Spirit to make the moves and the decisions needed. Jesus, we give you all the praise, honor and glory. Amen. Thank you so much for joining me today on Soulful Sessions. My name is Elias Dohora Jr. from Therapies Counseling and have a great week.