Not Forsaken

by Louie Giglio

  Sadly, things did not improve. Days went by and the bandages were changed, but the wound looked worse and worse, becoming infected and gross. I never did get stitches, and somehow my hand eventually healed, but I can tell you that trying to ignore a wound by covering it up is not the recommended course of action.

  The same is true of the wounds to our hearts. We cannot simply ignore the sting of our dad’s wounds. Sometimes we try by muttering things like:

  I don’t care about my dad. I couldn’t care less what he did or didn’t do.

  I don’t need him anyway.

  I’m fine, and I’ll never let him know how much he hurt me.

  What he did then has nothing to do with me now.

  I’m better off without him.

  If that’s the way he feels about me, then that’s the way I’ll feel about him.

  My dad is a loser and I’ll never be like him.

  I don’t care if I ever see him again.

  But such statements only reinforce one thing: your disappointment with your dad and the way his actions have impacted your life. Notice that the common denominator in every phrase are the words “he” and “him.” You can’t get past the wounds of your dad by repeatedly insisting that you’re not impacted by the wounds inflicted by him. And you can’t say you don’t need your earthly dad’s blessing without admitting there is a blessing that you are living without.

  So how do we uncover the wounds and find healing for our souls?

  To get past our wounds we have to first stare them in the face and admit how they have made us feel. We have to acknowledge the truth of our pain. We have to rip off the Band-Aid and get in touch with the reality that’s underneath. We can’t afford to ignore the wounds. But we can’t stay in the past either—always pushing on our wounds, always probing with questions of why? They’ll never heal that way. So we must shift our focus, understanding that healing doesn’t come by ignoring our wounds, but it also will never happen if we fixate on them. Healing comes as we consider another’s wounds—namely, the wounds of Jesus.

  The path to healing is found in focusing on Jesus’ wounds. “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).

  To delve deeper and deeper into your past without a firm grasp of the cross and the victory Jesus won for you there is like attempting to perform open-heart surgery on yourself. If you’re in need of a heart transplant you first must be willing to face it, to admit it. But you also need a heart surgeon, someone who can do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

  Wounds are real, and ignoring them can be fatal. But the “Heart-Surgeon” is here, and His name is Jesus.

  Let that sink into your soul—healing is here now in the person of Jesus.

  Reflect on the Wounds of Christ

  I want to close this chapter here—with the solution within range, but the solution not spelled out for us yet. I want to let us just sit with this tension that we might feel as we think about our earthly fathers.

  I know for some of us, that is a difficult place to be, and I want to respect the slow pace that might be required for us to move on from this place. Just let yourself breathe here. Let your eyes gradually be opened to the wounds of the One who ultimately heals us.

  Through our faith in Christ, we can all find healing, and we can all find the Father we have been longing for all along. And through Christ you do have this perfect Father God.

  You do.

  You do!

  My encouragement is for you to ease yourself from one image to the next—from the broken image left by an earthly father to the perfect Father who is drawing near. Respect the time this can take, sure. But also let yourself come alive to this glorious truth. God, your Abba, has gone to extraordinary lengths to let you know how much you matter to Him—and we’ll take a closer look at that next.

  Chapter 5

  The Tale of Two Trees

  Fatherhood is central to the story of God.

  We see this in the connection between the last words of the first section of Scripture (what we call the Old Testament) and the first words of the section that begins with the story of Jesus’ birth (the New Testament).

  As the Old Testament comes to a close, God’s people are stuck in their stubborn, sinful ways. God’s love and grace and leadership were constantly available to them, but more often than not they chose to go it alone, figuring things out in their own wisdom. They had mostly left behind their idols by this point, but they were not honoring the ways of God or trusting in His faithful character. They were stingy in their gifts towards God’s house of worship and dishonest in their dealing with Him, as if He didn’t fully know their hearts.

  Everything was a mess, yet God still had a redemption plan. In spite of their rebellion, God still loved His people and wanted the best for them. But apparently God had had enough of their rebuffs. His people weren’t listening, and God stopped talking. Between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament, there are four hundred years of history with no recorded message from God.

  When we take a copy of Scripture in our hands, it only takes the turn of a page to move from the prophecy of Malachi to the Gospel according to Matthew. Yet that single page turn represents four centuries of time. Four hundred years where there was no prophet. No promise. Nothing. Just silence.

  But have you ever noticed what the last words of the Old Testament recorded in Scripture are? What message did God leave with His people right before He went silent for four centuries?

  “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children , and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” (Mal. 4:5–6, italics added)

  How incredible! The Old Testament ends with a promise underscoring God’s desire to restore fatherhood, making right the relationships between children and their fathers. He wants to reconnect the hearts of fathers to their children and reposition children under the waterfall of their father’s blessing.

  In the broader sense, God is seeking to reestablish His future people in a right understanding of Himself and His ways. Yet in a more specific sense God is wanting us to realize that He is working (even through the silence) to make it possible for us to know Him as Abba Father .

  In these closing words from Malachi we see both a promise and a cause for us to pause. The promise is that God is not going to experience a work stoppage just because the people stopped listening to Him. His plans will remain on track. His mission will not be thwarted.

  But we also see a warning in these words. God is assuring us that our rebellion will not go unchecked forever. He wants us to know that the wrath of a Holy God is coming. Yet, don’t miss this—God is merciful and kind. The fiery justice of His righteousness doesn’t have to be our end.

  How do we know God is merciful and kind? After four hundred years of nothing, the lingering silence of heaven was broken by the cry of a baby in Bethlehem, because this is what God had to say next . . .

  God Starts Talking Again

  Imagine how eager the angel was who got the assignment to declare to the shepherds that a Savior had been born nearby during the night. For centuries there was no messenger, but now the announcement that would change history was made: “A Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).

  Actually a few angel visits had taken place in the months leading up to Jesus’ birth. The angel Gabriel appeared to a man named Zechariah promising the birth of John the Baptist. The angel told Zechariah that his son, John, would have a favored role in the story of God. John was going to prepare the way for Jesus by calling people to change their ways and turn to the Lord. And He was also going to do something else:

  And He will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents t
o their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. (Luke 1:16–17, italics added)

  We see that through John, God was fulfilling the last words of the Old Testament.

  In the first chapter of the New Testament God is shown keeping His promise and preparing a way for the hearts of fathers to change, making a way to restore the relationship between fathers and children. Making a way for your heart to change and a way to bring healing between you and your earthly father. Why? Because fatherhood matters to God. It matters so much because ultimately, He’s making a way to bring healing between you and your heavenly Father.

  Malachi’s prophetic words come true as Jesus comes to Earth, God in human skin. Jesus didn’t just come to do some good works and heal those with diseases. He wasn’t on earth just to walk on water and raise His buddy Lazarus from the dead. Jesus came to die, to do what no other person ever born could do. Born of a virgin and without sin, Jesus lived obedient to the Father so that He could exchange His innocent life for yours. In so doing, He would cancel your debt of sin and death and offer you the gift of never-ending life.

  This is the glorious gospel story that fuels this book and everything else about the Christian message. And, this heavenly exchange offers you a fatherhood possibility that is almost beyond comprehension. You may be thinking, I appreciate that Jesus gave His life so I could be forgiven and have peace with God, but what does that have to do with what happened between me and my dad? Sometimes we get all tangled up in our family tree, and we fail to see the primacy of the tree that is the cross of Calvary, and the vital connection between the two.

  Think of it this way: Jesus willingly took on all the wrong of every one of us on the cross. That means God transferred all our wrong—and all of your dad’s wrong—onto the blameless life of His Son. Once that happened, Jesus bore the guilt of our sinful ways, and thus He bore the weight of God’s wrath that we deserved. Remember that Scripture says Jesus was “pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:5).

  The significance of the baby’s birth which broke centuries of silence that I want you to see is this—when Jesus chose to die on that cross, He was forsaken by His Father so that you would never have to live a day without a father’s blessing. He was forsaken by His heavenly Father so that you would never have to be forsaken by God. Jesus accomplished the work on the cross to give you a new family tree.

  And this new family tree changes everything.

  Never Forsaken

  As the wrath of God fell on Jesus, the sky turned black and an earthquake shook the ground. Then, moments from death, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

  What staggering words to come from the lips of this Son who had lived for thirty-three years on earth (and for all of eternity past) in an inseparable bond with His Father. Yet, now, covered with our shame, Jesus knew what it was to be forsaken by His Almighty Father.

  Abandoned.

  Naked.

  Beaten.

  Wounded.

  Rejected.

  That’s how Jesus died. When He died, Jesus made good on the hope set forth in Malachi’s last prophetic bridge to the future. Now, through Christ, God could forgive you. Cover your sins, cancel your debt, and cast away your shame forever. Raise you with Christ to new life and call you son or daughter. Jesus was forsaken so that you would never have to be forsaken! That’s the significance of the title of this book. Thanks to the cross, you are not forsaken .

  Dive deep into this truth! Because of what Jesus has done for you, you can be born again through faith in Him into the family of God and always have access to the Father’s blessing. When you are in God’s family, you will never be forgotten. You will never have to cry out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

  Jesus took on Himself every curse that is over your life, especially the curse of living without a father’s love, acceptance, and approval. Jesus did this when He was hoisted up on Calvary’s tree, as it is written with reference to the cross, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” (Gal. 3:13.) And because of Christ’s work, this is your new identity:

  Jesus was cursed so that you could be cured.

  Jesus was forsaken so that you could be accepted.

  Jesus experienced the wrath of God’s righteous judgment so that you could be released from the weight of sin and shame.

  Jesus was broken on the cross so that your shattered destiny could be put back together again.

  Jesus became sin so that you could become the righteousness of God in Him.

  Jesus was wounded so you could be healed.

  Once your eyes are opened to the wonder of Jesus’ death, you understand that the cross is not just an important moment in the annals of history; the cross is the place where your reason for existence is defined. It’s the place where you can step into your purpose as you claim God’s forgiveness and fatherhood. As your relationship with God is changed, you find that human relationships can change too, and by the same means. If you want to go forward toward healing in your relationship with your earthly dad you must return to the cross of Christ again and again.

  And you must see the cross through eyes opened by the Spirit of God.

  A Glimpse of the Cross

  One night on a college retreat with my church on St. Simons Island, Georgia, I had this kind of revelation. I was sitting with some friends on the last row in the auditorium as our pastor, Dr. Charles Stanley, was teaching on abiding in Christ from John’s Gospel. Everything was pretty normal until the response time as he was praying over the group at the end of his message. Suddenly all the extraneous thoughts vanished from my mind’s eye, and all I could see was Jesus hanging on the cross. I didn’t visibly see the cross, and I don’t know what Jesus physically looked like hanging there. But I saw an image of Jesus on the cross, bloody and battered, a ring of thorns pressed into His head and agony on His face.

  I was a church kid. I’d heard about the cross all my life and believed in its power to save. I sang about it, taught Bible studies on it, read about it. But in that moment, everything changed. I had a revelation of the cross.

  What stopped me in my mental tracks was the realization that it was my cross. Jesus was hanging on a cross that I should have been on. It was my sin, my guilt, my wrong that put Him there. And He was taking all the punishment I deserved so I could go free.

  the cross is the place you claim god’s forgiveness and fatherhood.

  Dr. Stanley ended his prayer, and everyone headed for another building where the big event of the night was to “build your own banana split.” Many ice cream flavors would be laid out with all the toppings imaginable and you’d get to make yours just the way you wanted it. (Yes, this was a big draw on church retreats back in the day.) But suddenly I couldn’t care less about dessert, or seeing the girl I was interested in, or laughing with my friends. I mumbled to them to go on without me and I sat there frozen in my newfound revelation sight. I couldn’t move out of my chair.

  That night God opened the eyes of my heart.

  Similarly, God doesn’t just want you to know about the cross. He wants you to see it in such a way that it shakes you to the core and awakens you to an eye-opening realization that can alter the direction of your life. That’s the kind of unveiling He wants to give you, a revelation that allows you to be changed in an instant. It happened to one of the soldiers who nailed Jesus to that beam of wood. Just moments after Jesus breathed His last breath, the centurion declared, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39). He had heard people say all kinds of things about Jesus, about who He claimed to be. But in those moments watching Jesus die the centurion received spiritual sight and he knew for himself exactly who Jesus was.

  We can’t just breeze past the cross. It’s important for us to see that something powerful and gruesome and gutsy happened there. As awful as Jesus’ death was for Him, it’s the best thing that ever happened to
you and me. Once we truly see it, we are free. We see it and confess, I am forgiven!

  Radical grace invades our story and guilt and condemnation are sent packing. We realize that through faith in Jesus we are made new—we get a fresh start. This new beginning is not about something we do, it’s about someone we believe in and as a result someone we become. We are born again as sons and daughters of a perfect father. But that’s not the end of the story. Something else happens. As we begin to realize that we are the recipients of the most amazing grace, it starts dawning on us that we have the ability to reflect that same powerful grace to others.

  And that includes your dad.

  But before you can go forward in making peace with your dad, you have to first go back to the place where your heavenly Father made peace with you.

  In this process, you can be completely honest about your feelings about what happened with your dad. Maybe your father divorced your mom and left the family when you were young. Or perhaps he died of cancer or a heart attack or some other disease. Or maybe he broke your trust and your heart and, as a result, put you and your family through a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows, with some promises kept, but a lot more broken. Or maybe your dad hurt you, robbed your innocence, beat you, cursed you, or told you he wished you’d never been born. Or maybe there’s no father to reconcile things with. Your dad split long before you were born, or worse, he doesn’t even know you’re alive on planet Earth. If he did, would he come to find you? Would he care? Would he love you? And be proud of you?

  What do you do with all the pain and brokenness that you’ve experienced because of your earthly dad? Where was this perfect heavenly Father when all this was happening? And if the perfect Father is so good, and loves you so much, then why didn’t He stop things, or change the situation?