I demanded, “I need to know that You’ll always be here.”
He assured me, “I can’t break my word, and that’s exactly what it says Josh.
It says, ‘I’ll never leave you, I’ll never forsake you.’
I said that.
To you.
It was Me writing those words down through Moses. And Moses wrote those words in confidence with Me because I was fathering him too.
He wrote those words from experience son.”
I said, “That may be, but life has taught me hard lessons. What do you care, why don't you just leave. I mean if you are real I can’t bear the reality of your absence. I won’t do this with you. This isn't a game to me. Why does it have to matter at all what I believe if the result is me without you?! If you're real then I need you. It's not a game.
Or does that not matter. I don’t matter?! I knew that. What are you even doing here! Just leave already.”
I felt His nearness. He was wrapping me all the way up inside with love.
I was just waking up to the realness of God. I didn't ask for it, and it was terrifying. I was like some kind of scared animal. I didn't know if I wanted to fight or let it happen. So far I was ready for anything though.
I was tough. Life had seen to it.
It just kept coming. He was everywhere. His love was all over my unrighteousness, whatever, it just kept going. Like an endless train of a soft garment entering into the barrenness of my heart. A filthy womb of the dead. What was it even doing in there!
I cried.
I got angry again and said, “I can’t trust You. Just leave already!?”
He responded gently, “Son, I’m always here. Right where you are. You have to believe a lie to not sense me here with you.
I made your senses to know. They respond to Me.
I am here now and will never leave you. Not ever.”
I could feel His honesty. I began to see His innocence.
His love pushed through a barrier at that moment and I could feel Him there with me. I immediately doubted, but I could still feel Him there with me.
I could feel Him even during the doubt.
It was real.
To me, that meant it was real.
He had presented Himself a very real thing. It was so real my doubt turned on it like a wild bear missing its cubs. I came into the truth right there while the wrestle of doubt began fading into the background.
Soundness was taking over my bones. Peace was moving stuff around and making room in places that felt tight before. His innocence like a refreshing spring bubbling up in a dry and cracked desert. All that kind of biblical-imagery was making total sense.
It wasn’t my belief that got me there. It was relationship. He had pulled so hard on my relationship with Him that I came out on the other side in the full reality of a truth that my mind had never allowed me to reach.
All my analysis and considerations had only served to shore up a reasoning against the truth. Not for it. And now those reasons were violently suffering total exposure.
That was the last day of my wilderness without the Father.
I found Christ soon and later the Lord did a work to renew my heart and heal our bond even further. He's never stopped wrapping me up.
From this moment, I will never be alone again. The lie that I wanted to be alone was subject to this exposure along with a thousand others. It's still waring on, but I don't lose anymore. Sometimes I just have to wait it out but that reality doesn't change. He's never left. It wasn't long before I knew truly He had always been there too. It all was revealed and I was equipped. Those lies can't even hide anymore, I find them and they are humiliated. Left to the torment I once was when I believed them.
It was gratitude He had for me on the other side of my angry push. He wanted me to push until I broke all the way through the strongholds of my mind. The principles I held to. I needed to know I could push Him, and He knew that about me. Heaven came into my life with violence that day. My mind could only follow but could not lead me where this gift of His brought me. His supply paid all the debts my principles had cost me. My life was restored from the truth He'd wrapped me up into.
An earthly father, a good friend-father, none can be the Father that God is to His sons and daughters. I didn't have a father for as long as some do on this earth but I did love my earthly dad. He was a mess but he was kind. But the level of constant that Father God brings can’t be achieved by men, it simply is who He is. He’s a dad. The dad that inspired dad-ship. He is the core of every father, the ground that all dad’s grow out of. We express what we know of it, but He is it.
We have Him whether we believe it or not. Unoffended, He reaches out, “Come children. I'm here. I'm not leaving you. Not ever.”