What Kind Of Daddy Do You Have?

A college student in Manila called up his Mom in the province.

Mom, I need money, he asked. Can you send money over please?
Sure, the mother said. By the way, theres a Math textbook you left here at home. Ill send it over with the money.
Uh, oh yeah, Ok, her son answered.
His mother sent the money and the book.
Later that day, the father asked his wife, How much money did you send?
She said, I sent two checks. One was a P1000 check and the other was a P100,000 check.
What? cried the father in shock. Thats huge!
His wife smiled. Thats okay Honey. I taped the P1000 check on the cover of his Math textbook. I then inserted the P100,000
check somewhere in chapter 25 of his Math textbook. Believe me, he wont find it.
Your relationship with God is like a Math textbook. Because I believe the biggest blessings of God for your life are in chapter
25when you go beyond the surface and go deeper in this relationship with God.
My goal today is to bring you to chapter 25 in your relationship with God.
Let me tell you how.
I want to start a new series today Ill playfully call, OMG! If you dont know what that means, LOL. (For those my age who didnt
grow up with chat and IM and facebook: OMG! means Oh my God and LOL means Laugh out loud.)
For the next five weeks, I want to help you get to know God morewhich will deepen your trust in Him. And the more you trust
Him, the more youll be open to His blessings for your life.
Ive met a lot of people who dont trust God because they dont know Him. Theyre confused with misrepresentations of who
God is.
Heres what I learned: Your problems are big because your God is small.
Before Anything Else, God Is Daddy
I just arrived from the US the other day.
It was my shortest trip ever: Four days!
But I had to do it.
I was there to meet a very special man who was a spiritual mentor to Presidents, Kings, Prime Ministers, and other heads of
government. In other words, he disciples them to follow Jesus. Hes awesome.
This spiritual giant has been working in the United Nations for the past 25 years. Each month, he holds 30+ face-to-face
meetings with heads of government, ambassadors, and other high-level officials, guiding them how to lead their country using
the Bible.
So for three whole days, I sat around his table (we were just four studentsmyself, two bishops, and a secretary general)
to learn one thing: How to disciple Heads of States. It was mind-blowing.
So on my way back, I felt very important too.
I mean, how couldnt I?
I spent three days with a guy who takes phone calls from Presidents and Prime Ministers before he has breakfast. How cool is
that?
But the moment my plane landed in Manila, everything became clear to me. I knew the first Heads of States I would meet.
That entire day, upon arriving from the airport, I spent time with the two Kings whove conquered my heart since I saw them:
My two boysages 9 and 4.
Together, we did very high-level, critical, world-changing, life-altering work.
We drew robots and airplanes.
 We played with little cars.
We played a video game (I lost, as usual).
We jumped around the coach.
Why did I spend the entire day with them?
Because I believe that before Im a preacher, writer, leader, missionary, and businessman, Im a father.
And I suspect that God will say the same thing. This is just my personal opinion. I think before God is supreme judge
and king of kings of the entire universe, Hes a Father. Thats why when someone asked Jesus, Teach us how to pray, He
answered, Say this: Our Father
The original word that Jesus used for Father is Abba, which doesnt really translate to Father but Daddy or Papa. It was
what a little baby would call his father.
But as I played with my boys yesterday, I began to think of all the other children who dont experience what they
experience. And I believe that one of the reasons why we dont know God as Father is because of the wrong fatherhood weve
experienced.
Specifically, I thought of four of my friends: Emmanuel, Grace, Dulce, and Fides. Ive changed their names to protect their
privacy.
But unfortunately, their stories are true.
Invisible Fathers

My friend Emmanuels father was a lawyer. Later on, he became a judge and was promoted all the way to the Supreme
Court.
Emmanuel was proud of his father. But when our conversations became intimate, hed tear up, and tell me that he rarely
saw his father. When he woke up, his father was rushing out for his breakfast meetings. In the evenings, his father wasnt home
yet.
Emmanuel grew up knowing his father was an important man doing very important things. But as he grew up, he realized
he wasnt one of these important things his father did.
Years later, Emmanuel came to know God in a personal way. Yet for years, he wondered how important he really was in Gods
heart.
Autistic Fathers
Some fathers are physically present at home.
But they dont engage their kids.
Instead, theyre wrapped up in their own world. Either watching TV or surfing the web. Thats why I call them autistic
fathers.
Many years ago, I met Grace. She told me that as a child, her goal in life was to make her father smile at her. Because he never
did.
Oh, she would find him laughing with his barkada.
But never to her.
One day, she came home with very high grades on her report card. In her heart, she hoped that perhaps today, he would smile
at her.
But when she gave him the report card, all her father did was look at it for two seconds, grunt, tossed it back, and went back
watching TV.
Not one word of affirmation or appreciation.
Her little heart was crushed.
For years, Grace had a hard time imagining that God was pleased with her. She always imagined God having a perpetual frown
on his face.
Cruel Fathers
Dulces father is the most barbaric father Ive ever heard of in my life.
When she was 3 years old, he raped her.
Years later, she always had this nightmare of her head being pushed into a toilet bowl. She realized why. Because her father
warned her not to tell anyone of the rape or hed drown her in the toilet.
For the next ten years, for the slightest mistakes (such as a spilled glass of milk), her father would whip her with his belt
until blood flowed. When he was lashing her, her mother would tell him, Dont hit her below the knees! So that the wounds
would be covered by her skirt.
He would then grab her ankles, hang her upside down, and bang her head on the floor. He would do this for thirty
minutes until she stopped crying and was a lifeless rag in his hands. He would do this each week for ten long years.
Heres the absurd fact of this story: Until the day he died, her father was an elder and deacon in church. To everyone else,
he was an angel. Upon arriving home, he was the devil incarnateand no one knew.
Dulce is now an adult but suffers massive physical, emotional, and spiritual torments. She has gone through 9 surgeries in
various parts of her body. Her doctors discovered micro-strokes in her brain, caused by the head banging she suffered as a
child. But her emotional pain was even more severe than her physical pain.
Im happy to say that Dulce enjoys an intimate relationship with God. God has healed and continues to heal her. But it took
years of healing and learning to trust a tender loving Father.
Unfaithful Father
Fides was still a small child when she saw her father walk out of their house carrying his suitcase. At that time, she didnt know
that he was abandoning her, her mother, and her two brothers for another woman.
Unlike her brothers who rebelled and got into drugs, Fides became even more obedient. She became even more
responsible. Her school grades shot to the moon. Everyone praised her for being such a good girl.
Later on, Fides realized she blamed herself for the separation of her parents. Inexplicably, she believed that if she were only a
better girl, her father would have never left. And for years, she secretly hoped that if she became that better girl, perhaps her
father would come back.
For years, Fides relationship with God was also about buying His love. She would always try to be good to try to please Himso
He would love her. She had this constant fear that if she made one mistake, God would abandon her too.
May The Real God The Father
Please Stand Up?
For many Christians, its so much easier to pray to Jesus. After all, He died for our sins. Hes the sweet one. The Father was
the mean guy who sent Jesus to die on the cross.
And for many Catholics, its so much easier to pray to Mother Mary than to God the Father. Because they believe Mary is
more merciful than God. If you cant go through the front door, go to the back doorMary has the key.
Which is utterly preposterous.
We have these difficulties because we dont know who the Father really is.
The Father and the Son are one. And Mother Mary is a beautiful reflection of Gods love for us.
May the real God The Father please stand up?
I changed the names of our four real-life characters. I chose each name deliberately to show you who God the Father is:
He is Emmanuel, Grace, Dulce, and Fides.

Daddy Is Emmanuel
 A tribe in Africa had a very scary manhood ritual.
When a boy turned 12, the entire community gathered around him for this once-in-a-life-time chanting and dancing
ceremony. The elderly women painted red die on his face. His mother gave him a beaded necklace. And the tribal chieftain
handed him a long knife with a carved wooden handle.
By nightfall, he was blindfolded and led by six men into the middle of the forest. Once deep inside, the men left
him. Alone. In total pitch darkness.
The instruction was simple. Survive until dawn, and he gets accepted as a real man in the tribe.
But the young boy knew very well that the forest was an incredibly dangerous place. It was the home of
tigers. Snakes. Bears. Hyenas.
And so for the entire night, this scrawny little 12-year-old boy was now all alone in the forest. The entire night, he held his
knife trembling in his hand. Not for one moment could he rest. Try as he might, his eyes could see nothing but shadows
around him. In his imagination, every little soundeven a leaf swaying in the windwas a wild animal ready to pounce on him
at any moment.
The whole night, he could hear his heart pounding in his chest.
When his terror overwhelmed him, tears ran down his cheeks. He wanted to shout, Im just a little boy! Im not ready yet to be
a man! But who could hear him now? He was all alone.
But after many hours of fighting his fear and exhaustion, his eyes could see more clearly. Dawn was approaching. The first
shafts of sunlight pierced through the thick canopy of leaves above him.
That was when the little boy felt something move behind him.
In terror, he turned around.
And there, standing tall on a rock behind him, was the towering figure of a fierce-looking man holding a long spear.
The boy shouted, Daddy!
The father smiled.
When did you arrive? the boy asked, Are you here to pick me up?
The father said, Before you arrived last night, I was already here. I stood guard, protecting you the whole time. I never left you
for one moment, my son.
Daddy is Emmanuelwhich means God with us.
Friend, I dont know what darkness youre going through right now. Perhaps youre praying for your child who is on drugs. Or
your husband is having an affair. Or youre having financial problems right now. Remember that in your darkness, God is with
you. He will never leave or abandon you.
When youre in pain, God embraces you and feels your pain. He weeps with you. Because Daddy is Emmanuel.
Daddy is Grace
When I think of Grace giving her very high report card to her fatherand all he did was gruntI remember my own
experience with my report card.
When I was in grade school, my report card had red marks. (At least, it was colored. Yours was just black and white.) Because I
failed in Math and Pilipino.
That day, I went up to Mom and showed her my report card.
All she said was, Show it to your father.
Gulp. Oh boy. I walked up to Dad and gave it to him.
He read it, nodded his head, and handed it back to me, and said, Son, just study some more.
No spanking. No scolding. No disapproval.
He then said, Lets eat.
Thats why for the rest of my academic life, I kept failing. (Hehe.)
 I guess Dad knew that my brilliance wasnt in academics. It would bloom elsewhere. (Ahem.)
I thank God for having parents who loved me whether I performed in school or not. They just loved me,
period. Unconditionally.
Daddy means Grace. Grace means gift.
Two weeks ago, my son Bene came up to me and showed me his Math exam. He was sad because out of 100 points, he
got 92. I couldnt help but laugh. Because if I got 92, my mother would have fainted. Because when I was a kid, out of 100
points, I would get 36. One time, I got 28. I would show those test papers to Dad. And all hed say was, Just do better next
time.
Grace means free gift.
Heres my point: You dont have to please God so that He loves you. He loves you as you are. He accepts you totally.
I dont care what sin you committed. I dont care how many times youve done it. God loves you and will forgive you of your
sins. It will be this love that will bring you to repentance and a new life.
Because Daddy is grace.
Daddy Is Dulce
Dulce means sweet.
I believe God is the sweetest Daddy in the world.
A few years ago, I was in a preaching tour in the US.
I remember one big event. After the last song, I was signing my books. There was an unusually long line of people who wanted
my autograph. In front of me were four ushers telling people to wait for their turn.
That was when someone ran past the long line of people, squeezed himself in between the ushers, and ducked underneath the
table. He then climbed on my lap, handed me a bottle of water, and said, Please open, Daddy. Im thirsty.
Bene was four years old at that time.
Obviously, I stopped signing books and opened his bottle.
How could Bene do that? Because he was my son and I was his Daddy.
He was confident that I wouldnt reject him. He knew that I loved him more than the entire world.
This is what Jesus meant when he taught us the Our Father.
Like Bene, we too can run to God, climb on his lap, and ask for what we need.
Because Daddy is dulce.
Daddy Is Fides

I like to believe Im a good father.

But Im nothing compared to Dick Hoyt and his love for his son Rick.
In 1962, while baby Rick was in the womb of his mother, he was strangled by the umbilical cordcausing a lack of oxygen in his
brain. He suffered cerebral palsy and couldnt speak or control his arms or legs.
As an eight month old baby, doctors told Dick and his wife Judy to place the child in an institution. Because he was going to be
a vegetable all his life, they said. But the parents refused and brought him home. Dick promised that he would try to give his
son as normal a life as possible.
Fast forward today: Dick learned that Rick loved sports. After a lot of pain and exercise (Dick wasnt athletic), he pushed Rick in
a wheelchair in a 5 kilometer run. After the Run, Rick said that while he was in the race, he didnt feel an invalid.
That was the start of a great adventure. Today, this father-and-son team has participated in 66 marathons and 229 triathlons.
While running, Dick would push his son in a wheelchair.
While swimming, Dick would pull him in a rubber boat.
While biking, Dick would carry him at the front of his bike.
When I watched the life of Dick and Rick Hoyt, I saw a glimpse of Gods love. This is the Fathers love for you.
I dont know about you, but I must admit that Im handicapped in many areas of my life. Ive got weaknesses I still battle to this
day.
But in this adventure called life, Ive experienced my God pushing me, pulling me, and carrying me in his arms.
I know God does the same to you.
Fides means faith. The root word for faithfulness.
God has faith in you. He believes in you.
Daddy is fides.
Next week, Ill talk about God as Leader.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez