For many people, it is a real struggle to see God as their heavenly Father. This can be for a variety of reasons, especially if someone has not experienced a loving and kind earthly father. Yet God desires for us to come to know Him from the perspective as not just our creator, but as the One who wants to lead us and guide us.
In his exclusive Beyond the Article interview, author Mondo De La Vega opened up about his own fear of becoming a father and how God used one of his darkest moments to shift his heart.
“I never wanted to have kids. I never wanted to get married…the thought of being a father scared me because I didn’t know what a father looked like, I didn’t know what a father smelled like, I didn’t know what a father sounded like, so for me to even include myself in that category, it scared everything about me,” Vega says.
Yet, even with these fears of the unknown, God was still able to transform Vega’s life and his dependence on Him as Lord. After marrying his wife, the couple embarked on the journey of parenthood, eventually welcoming twins into their family. This would make Vega confront his fear of becoming a father.
“Anytime I used to come over and see her, my wife would ask me to put my head on her belly and she said to talk to them,” Vega says. “I was so afraid of being a father that I couldn’t say ‘hi guys, this is your dad.’”
However, it was during this pregnancy that Vega says God met him in his greatest valley.
“Most people think that the will of God is found at the mountaintop,” Vega says. “Instead, the will of God is found in the moment that you need God the most, in the moment of crisis…when I heard God’s voice to say, ‘it’s okay to call yourself a father, a dad,’ was at that critical, pivotal moment when my son was fighting for his life.”
Just as Vega had to trust God in that moment as his heavenly Father while he was becoming a dad, he encourages others that they too can lean on God. As the Israelites had to trust God to help them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, God asks that we too can look at Him as our Father, provider and protector who will help us through life’s greatest hardships.
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“In that crisis moment God delivers a word to say, ‘I’m getting you out of Egypt, and I’m taking you to the promised land. You had to go by faith. It is in this crisis moment that God’s voice is louder than anything that surrounds you,” Vega says.
As Vega uncovers more harrowing details about God’s provision as his heavenly Father in his feature Charisma Magazine Online article, we too can look to God as Mondo does: the One who is able to help us overcome our greatest fears, and the one who loves and protects us, just as a Father does.
No matter what your earthly relationship with fatherhood has been, it’s possible to know God as the Father who will never give up and never fail on you.
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Abby Trivett is a marketing copywriter and coordinator for Charisma Media.
Stephen Strang