This morning I had an opportunity to share a word with fellow Liberty Christian football moms at our Locker Room Prayer Moms meeting. Each week we gather in the (very stinky) Varsity locker room and share a word, a song and we pray together over our boys, our coaches, our school and the opposing school too. It’s a powerful time where we can open our hearts to each other and to the Lord. He meets us there.
God has been working through this message in my heart for a few months but I knew it was time to articulate it and share and hopefully encourage others.
I am the youngest child in my family with two older brothers. I’m the only girl and the baby. And daddy’s little girl. I’ve always had a special relationship with my dad and I’ve always felt completely loved.
Being my dad’s daughter also came with lots of perks, in addition to just being his “little peaches.” My dad had a business in town, was the President of the Chamber of Commerce and had a really big impact in our community, and still does. People know him and love him. This meant I could name drop around town if I needed anything. LOL. We knew a lot of people. The long-standing joke in our family was “It’s not what you know but who your father knows.”
Almost two years ago to this day I first set foot in Texas on a 24-hour layover from one coast to the other and God started working on my heart, in a big way. Derek and I were living in, and raising our family in, the town we were both born and raised in in Northern California, but I began to feel God calling us out. At first we simply romanticized Texas – as conservative Christians living in California you might understand.
But it became more and God began to impress this HUGE leap of faith on Derek and me. We would leave everything and everyone we knew and move to a place where we didn’t know anyone. We had found Liberty Christian School for our boys but we knew nothing else about what we would do here.
And I was leaving my parents with whom I am incredibly close…
I was leaving my dad.
One day before we moved I went forward after a church service for prayer. I told my friend who was going to pray for me, “We’ve always had this joke about it not being what we know but who our father knows. And I’m leaving all of that behind after 47 years.” She looked at me and simply said, “It is about who your Father knows. Your Father in Heaven.”
Mind tilt. And yes. Of Course.
A few months ago I read the following in Phillipians 3:7-9 “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith…”
And verses 12-15: “Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
My study bible says about these verses, “Understand that no personal achievements earn spiritual position. Do not be afraid to lose everything in your quest to know Christ. Make knowing Christ your main goal in life. Know that this quest always involves sacrifice and unselfish living. Aim to achieve the goal God has set for you. Spare no cost in this quest. Spare no effort in your pressing toward the mark of knowing Christ.”
These verses reminded me of that day at the altar and revealed to me how God has gone before us on this journey.
So, many of you know we stepped out in faith and here we are. We’ve been here one year. And we have been totally dependent on our Father in Heaven. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And he has directed our steps. These aren’t just words. This is my testimony. He has given us a church we adore. He has given us groups of women and men and couples and deep friendships. He has knit us into the Liberty Community. Last year at Open House this people person had no people. It was very strange. This year I knew people in every class I sat in and hugged friends as we passed in the hall.
God is so good. And He loves us. And I understand.
I had (and still have) a very loving father so when I became a Christian and really started to learn about the love of God, I could easily understand it. I do understand that many people don’t come from that same place and it may be hard to open up to the unconditional love of God. But it is worth it. He is so good and wants what’s best for us, every day.
I want all of you to understand that love. I hope each of you walk in the confidence of knowing you have a Father in Heaven who loves you more than you can ever understand.
And I want this for our boys.
We love on our boys. We speak life into our boys. And we invest in Liberty Christian School to give our kids the opportunity to have teachers pour into them. To share the love of God. And we have an amazing staff of football coaches who are here for the purpose of raising up young men who love the lord and who know they are unconditionally loved by the Lord. And to win some football games too. 😉
For many young men, these coaches are likely filling a void that a natural father may have left in their lives. I am so grateful for these men who can stand in those fathers’ shoes in this season and speak life to our boys. But even more than all of this, I want each of our boys to know they can have a direct relationship with the God who created them. Who knows every detail about them. Who understands their insecurities and fears. And who wants to pour out His love on them.
I want our boys to understand, “It’s not what they know, it’s who their Father in Heaven knows.”
He is so good.
I hope this word and this song from Chris Tomlin “Good Good Father” speaks to you today.
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