A Father is a girl’s first representative of who a man is, how a man should treat a woman. Many a times, the relationship a girl has with her dad is what she transfers to her relationship with God and other men she meets as she grows older.
My dad and I were never friends, and still not, I loved him as my dad but we never got along. He wasn’t a wicked man, but he was a strict disciplinarian that wouldn’t take nonsense from his children. He’s a type of man that always wants to be in charge, you dare not question whatever he says, and if you do, then, you’re a rebel, he’s the type of man that smiles when he’s angry but he will beat the hell out of you once you’re alone with him.
He’s the type of man that believes a 20 or even 25 year old child still has to ask for permission to do some things. And that was the main reason we didn’t really get along. How on earth would I ask for permission before going for a program? I’m a graduate for heaven’s sake. We fought and argued, until he realized I was too stubborn and then he left me to myself.
It affected my relationship with God seriously, when I got born again. I saw God the way I had known my dad – a no nonsense father. I would always try not to do anything to get Him angry, so He wouldn’t spank me or abuse me. It wasn’t my fault, that was the image of a father I grew up with.
Whenever I needed to ask my dad for something I need, or get permission to go somewhere, I would first ask myself some questions I know he might ask and answer them; if I couldn’t answer them or give satisfactory answers to them, I wouldn’t bother to ask him. Of course, I had regrets later because the worst that could have happened was for him to say NO, but there’s no harm in trying, right?
So, when I got born again and I needed to ask something from God, I would do the same: ask myself some questions and then sometimes, I wouldn’t bother asking God, but the awesome father would still go out of His way to grant the requests.
It took a long time for me to unlearn and relearn, before I could relate with God like a daughter should to her father. I had a perverse representation of how a real dad should act towards his daughter. He was my first image of a man, and so I had formed my belief around him.
The first representation of man a lady has is her father. She observes him to know how a man should behave to a lady, she looks at him to know what to expect from any man. But when a girl has a wrong representation in her father, it affects the lady and what she expects from men.
A father is supposed to be a girl’s first love, but if this is missing, the girl grows up wanting love from any man that shows a little bit of it towards her. And this is one way ladies fall into the hands of crazy men that just wants to have sex with her and dump her. Once he shows her love, she is gone.
Dads are very important in a girl’s life, right from childhood. A girl always wants love from men; her father, her brothers, friends at school, at work, her fiance, her husband, or just some random guy that shows her care and love.
God put dads on earth so we can have a glimpse of how to relate with Him, the heavenly father. When a dad treats a daughter well, with love and care, and she gets born again and is told that God is her father, she quickly adjusts and transfers the love she has for her earthly father to God. She doesn’t find it stressful, she doesn’t have to do some extra work to know how to relate with God. Unlike a girl who doesn’t know how a real father should treat a daughter, whose only representation of a father she has is one who beats up her mother, abuses her like she’s nobody and doesn’t even show her care. It takes a lot for her to know how to properly relate with the heavenly father.
This is a call to dads, and upcoming dads. We need you in our lives, give us a true representation of God, it will help us to serve Him better. Treat our mothers right, show us love, treat us like queens, so that when a crazy man comes with his sugar coated mouth, we can boldly tell him, ‘My dad has told me that, you don’t need to lie to me’.
And to ladies who didn’t grow up with the love of a father, don’t worry. Your heavenly father is always there for you, He loves you so much, He won’t always spank you when you do wrong, He’ll correct you in love and still help you out of the mess you put yourself in.
You don’t have to fall for some guy that just wants to use you. Stick to your father’s love, He will always bring men that has His love in them, you’ll find them in friends, fiances, husbands, spiritual fathers that love you just like their own children. Just wait on your father’s love, He’ll bring them.
Faleye Abimbola Tinuola
Makarios
