The year is at a halfway point and there is a pull by the culture for change on many sides. This being the month of June, we will celebrate Father's Day. So, here's a question. How does the spirit of sonship fit within your relationship with the Heavenly Father? Are you able to embrace and welcome the ability to walk in your right of Kingdom sonship? How does that look for you in the practical everyday moments of coming and going?
Perhaps like me, you were lacking in a variety of areas in receipt of an intimate relationship with an earthly father. The position of being a father is amazing, called to see their children within, lifting up the identity sown deep within them. When there has been little or no life experience of fathering, there still remains for believers a real opportunity with our Heavenly Father to receive all that seemed lost.
Woven into the fabric of daily situations are fathering opportunities, usually packaged as items much larger than what is possible for humanity to accomplish. Our God is wisdom, and what He has in mind is brought to us from every side and in practical terms. Look at Galatians 4:6 "Because you are His sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’”
Recently, I was working in the garden, working with the elementals and putting down fledgling plants and seeds. All of it requires tending, watering, staking, and nurture. Now, almost at harvest, the fruit is large and lush, ready to be consumed as the product of what it was intended to accomplish. Here's the place of moving from 'mothering' the plants to 'fathering' them. The fruit is present and it is time to be ready to pick. So, here comes the birds, and furry creatures with their eyes on the fruit as well. It is time to defend my garden. Strategically, now, I put in place a cover of netting in defense. Those vegetables have a chance to mature, they are on their own, but I'm in a new posture now, that of garden defender.
First, it is Father God who sends to us His spirit of sonship. He seeds sonship into our hearts long before our human spirit ever considers crying out, back to Him. Relationship as sons of God is our right as believers, but we must learn to appropriate it. This position of sonship is not gender related; it’s for all of us to arise as sons under the governance of the Kingdom of God.
None of this can be accomplished in singularity. This beautiful work of God’s design shows up in my garden all the time to teach me how to father. My competence in mothering cannot 'defend' the garden in this time of the season. It takes a Fathering mantle and the character of sonship to flow from a place of the power of sufficiency and authority to ensure a good and hearty harvest.
As we step into our sonship, that place where God is calling us, wonder with me where He is Fathering you to gain strength, wisdom, understanding and counsel. We may fail, but we must persist to fail forward as Paul exhorts. He who has called us to shift nations, has armed us by design and empowered an open access to flow with Him. He's got this...and God is good. Review the three elements of Romans 11:36, and understand the dominion that Jesus Christ carried to us to accomplish this. "For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory!".
A Blessing of Fathering -
I bless you with Father God showing you the good fruit, that which has been produced based on His accomplished work within you! May you grab hold of the effective ways He has already given you to accelerate - within community, on land, and alongside people. Hear the roar of His word to you, "and to Him" meaning the ability to bring forth, to bear up, press forward, to lead, relate, respect and believe for the best results to come forth because you are there and you are a son of the King of the Universe.
May you live, lead, carry, send, create, believe, bear-up, teach and excel in every fathering tool God has placed in your toolbelt - fathering from a righteous position, partnering in fathering ways to unlock portals between Heaven and Earth for the transformation of the earth and possession of the land as God's original design. Whether you are in business, in ministry, in secular, church or the mission field, I bless you to have the ability and eyes to see how to move from mothering to fathering so that God will accomplish everything He has given to you.
Amen.