“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” –Peggy O’Mara
A father’s likes, for example, sports, politics, music, or cars, etc., becomes the language in which a father speaks to his children and which they speak to themselves.
The fact that many fathers do not listen with their hearts is why so many sons and daughters remain disconnected from their dads. His children may not like sports, politics, or music, etc., and therefore have nothing to say. I meet so many people obsessed with sports, politics, drugs, drinking, etc., because this is the only way that they can relate to or speak with their fathers.
Many people have no idea as to why they like or do these things, and rarely make the connection that they do these things because this was their father’s language – this is how they’ve learned to gain their father’s approval, acceptance, and his attention.
My father’s language was politics and technology. I found myself learning all I could about current political events and the latest technological gadget, so I would have something to say to my dad. I wanted my father’s approval — his acceptance and respect, so I learned his language. The sad part is that my relationship with my father was always in the shallows and never at the level and depth of heart and soul. Sadly, this became my language also between my own sons and daughter.
One day, I inspected a water-damaged home in Antioch, California, with the homeowner and his family present. All the decorations in the kitchen, family room, and master bedroom were covered with San Francisco 49er’s paraphernalia – I mean, it was everywhere! After I was completed with my task, the husband asked me:
“So, do you watch sports? … what do you think of those 49ers?”
I replied:
I don’t watch or like sports all that much.
His facial expression intimated shock and amazement!
I further replied:
… You like sports because this was the only way you could speak with your father and gain his attention and approval.
I glanced at his wife, and her face suddenly lit up with shock!
She quickly replied:
“MY GOSH, THAT’S SO TRUE!”
The husband just stood there, with his mouth opened, with the expression as though his best friend had just died!
You begin to learn how powerful for good, or evil, our father’s likes, especially when they become the mechanism of speech or language with their children. Right? Just as Peggy O’Mara wrote,
“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.”
The Bible points this out in the last book of the Old Testament, and in the very last two verses:
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” –Malachi 4: 5-6.
Do you see?
If the fathers do not turn their hearts to their children, the earth will be cursed. What curses the world is silent fathers and fathers that do not speak from their hearts. This, in turn, causes children not to speak from their hearts also. Instead, their relationship with their dads is in the shallows. Very little, to no life pass from the father to their children. Sadly, this lack of transaction creates an emotional and relational deficit from generation to generation.
Proverbs 4: 23 puts it this way:
“Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.”
If you’re a father, change the language from sports, politics, or anything that keeps your relationship with your kids in shallow places and listen and speak from your heart. From your heart flows the springs of life. Your kids can’t live successful, healthy, and full lives without the spring of life from your heart. Your words and language matter. It’s a matter of life and death!
We dads have the power of life and death in our speech with our kids, young or old. Our words have the power to build or destroy the future of our children. It is never too late to speak from our hearts.
Help build your children’s future and speak the language of love.
Sometimes, it’s the simple prayer of a desperate heart that changes everything!
I know my Heavenly Father has me where he wants me, in his capable hands. But sometimes I forget. It’s not always easy to place my life and my prayers into his hands. When the struggling is over, and I rest in who he is, I find peace and the assurance that he hears my prayers.
I can, and do, at times, recount the prayers in which he’s answered. Since, in most times, my prayers are about major issues, they indeed are worth remembering and thanking him all over again. But those desperate, little prayers are just as meaningful too and worth remembering.
This is why the first word His Holy Spirit teaches us to say is “Abba Father,” which actually means “poppa,” or “da-da” in Hebrew. He wants that kind of trust and familiarity from us. The God of All Creation invites us to call out to him as an infant, frail, dependent, and trusting.
My favorite title in all the world is “Daddy.” It was my precious daughter, Tessa, who’d call me daddy, while my boys would call me dad or pops. Daddy is the title that would melt my heart and soften my face.
I truly believe that our Heavenly Father loves us to call him “daddy,” “poppa,” or even “da-da.” I think he wants to hear that name and title from you. I believe that Abba may be God’s favorite name.
One lonely and rainy morning, I was traveling to Castro Valley, California, for work. It was 5:30 a.m., still dark, as I was approaching Vasco Road in Brentwood. I had been prayerless for weeks, as I had drifted away from God. I desperately wanted to pray, but I had lost my words and was filled with shame.
I remembered a simple prayer that I read in a book by Brennan Manning, titled: “Abba’s Child” – The Cry of The Heart For Intimate Belonging.
I began reciting the words:
“Abba-Father, I belong to you—Abba-Father, I belong to you!”
Over and over again, this prayer bubbled up from my desperate and lonely heart.
With the rain pounding my windshield, tears began streaming down my face, making it harder to see.
With more than a few dozen cars ahead of me, I came to a stop at the dreaded lighted intersection of Camino Diablo and Vasco Road. While traffic was inching along, I kept desperately praying that simply prayer, “Abba-Father, I belong to you.”
In my desperatness, I added, “I am my beloved’s and he is mine, his banner over me is love,” taken from the Old Testament book, Songs of Songs.
I finally made it to the intersection, as one by one, each car negotiated their turns. The rain still pouring down, I completed my turn onto Vasco Road, heading towards Livermore to catch HWY 580, still crying and praying with all my heart.
As soon as my headlights illuminated the car in front of me, their license plate frame brightly reflected to me the following words:
“ABBA’S CHILD.”
I had to wipe my eyes, just to confirm what I was seeing was real! My heart became instantly alive again. My soul began to soar! I heard God, loud and clear, in the depths of my heart and with my own eyes!
God had heard my simple but desperate prayer. He reminded me in that moment at Camino Diablo and Vasco Road that I am still his child.
I am Abba’s Child! God’s miraculous reminder changed me in an instant and restored my soul!
God hears our prayers! Even when we’ve brushed him off or drifted far away from him. Abba-God rushes back at the sound of our cries—at the sound of our awkward prayers, he comes back into our lives just as a real daddy does.
I ask you to look at the photo below and imagine yourself in Abba’s embrace. Now, release your fears, worries, concerns; your sicknesses, and diseases; your loss of love or marriage; your suffering and finances, and all your loneliness and let it all go into Abba-God’s strong and sure embrace. Take a deep breath, relax—let it go, he can handle it all.
“The steps of a [good and righteous] man are directed and established by the Lord, And He delights in his way [and blesses his path]. When he falls, he will not be hurled down because the Lord is the One who holds his hand and sustains him.” –Psalm 37:23-24 Amplified Bible
Do you see? You belong to him, as a legitimate son or daughter—you’re his responsibility.
Now thank him and sleep well tonight, and when you wake up, remind yourself of this little prayer:
“Abba Father, I belong to you—Abba Father, I belong to you.” I am my beloved’s, and he is mine; his banner over me is love. Amen
A little girl understands the significance of inner beauty from her daddy. Her mother may teach her the practicality and meaning of femininity, but her daddy will teach her the importance of feminine beauty and being captivating in heart and soul.
To ignore this writes John Eldredge:
“… to dismiss her little twirls, bashful smiles, and cries, of: “Daddy, do you see me? Daddy, do you delight in me? Daddy, do you have time for me?”
To ignore these important things, can create ugliness on the inside and an overemphasis on external beauty.
So many little girls are wounded in heart and soul by a brute father, cruelty, or physical violence. This is not to marginalize or diminish the pain of abuse, which so many little girls and women have suffered. However, a father’s absence, busyness, or silence can damage her inner beauty and feminine heart too.
I know this because I have a fantastic, graceful, brilliant, and gentle daughter named Tessa. She is blessed with a natural outer beauty, and, despite my long periods of absence in her younger years, she radiates inner beauty and a love for life. She is also very creative and has become a very bright and savvy businesswoman.
Yes, I know about wounded little girls and wounded wives. I wish I could undo the absent and silent years while I was too busy with career and acclimation, fame, and fortune. I hate that not only did I validate much of my wife’s wounding, but I created wounding within the heart and soul of my precious daughter.
But, as fathers and daddies, if we turn our hearts back towards our daughters, they can be set free to twirl, smile, and light up with inner beauty, no matter how young or old. It is never, absolutely never too late to heal the damage we men, young and old, have inflicted on the most precious gift as a little girl.
If we don’t, she’ll go on, accentuating her outer beauty and cultivating and shaping her femininity as a weapon against other women and allurement to capture men’s primal instinct and attention, whereby she’ll ruin herself repeatedly.
The hole in her heart is caused not by strangers, boyfriends, or lovers but by a father, and no other man on earth can make her whole again except the man called, daddy.
A wound where there are no tears, but only a hardened heart and dry soul, is a heart and soul that a miracle can only heal. Fathers, you are that miracle!
My daughter has told me many times, while we’re in public, “did you see the way that girl looked at me?” It took me a while to understand and catch what she had experienced, but one day, I saw the snarling look girls give to pretty girls. The irony is that the angry or jealous girl may be blessed with outer beauty.
But doesn’t this speak to the real issue—the real battle within the wounded feminine heart and soul?
She feels threatened and at war with outer beauty, no matter how unattractive or beautiful an opponent may be—she can’t help but constantly compare herself to them. Her extreme focus blinds her to the inner emptiness of others. This is because she has long forgotten or is unaware of her inner beauty. So all that is left is the shell and not the substance of who she truly is—she is lost.
A wise and good father will point his daughter to a greater Father by loving her from the inside out. By loving her from his heart to hers, he grants her the belief and faith in a Loving and Father-Hearted God.
“No one can come to the Father, Jesus has said, except through me.” John 14: 6. And, with the passageway and destination to God being both males, a father-wounded girl may have difficulty trusting these words of Jesus, or the goodness of the heart of a Father-God.
The Evil One uses a father’s inexperience and his childhood wounding from his own father to harm the daughters and sons that he’s begotten. This is called a schism, a well-planted wedge of hurt and pain from one victim to the next, from one father to daughters and sons, until generations are inflicted with heartlessness, self-loathing, and with an over-emphasis on the flesh.
If we fail to turn to our daughters, a wounded girl will compete aggressively among other sufferers, among other wounded girls. The only difference between a wounded little girl and a wounded and grown woman is the cost of their hair, makeup, clothing, and accessories.
I have nothing against makeup, clothing, or a little bling. But, if you want the right kind of man, wouldn’t you instead captivate him with your heart and soul? If not, you may fall for a guy who’ll not see you, not delight in you, and not spends time with you. You’ll settle for the abuse of silence and busyness, a hollow man only satisfied with your competitive and external beauty, which you must constantly fight against, foods, fads, and aging.
Wouldn’t you want a man who values and is captivated by your heart and soul? After all, your heart and soul are eternal and not external.
Healing is possible. Life is possible. And Love is worth fighting for, and a daddy’s love is worth risking the hurt of possible rejection. But, “faith, hope, and love are eternal,” and, as it further says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13, the Love Chapter, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”
… Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy; it does not boast; it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hope, and always perseveres. Love never fails.
…And now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. –I Corinthians 13: 4-8,13.
If you want “Happily-Ever-After,” you must find the guy who’s after your heart, not your body or made-up face. When you do, you’ll be happy and free to live and be truly loved.
It is the heart—it’s always been the heart. And not only is this the part of you which Christ came to heal, but also to make his home with you— inside your heart.
“The Spirit of the Lord, the Eternal, is on me. The Lord has appointed me for a special purpose. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to repair broken hearts, And to declare to those who are held captive and bound in prison, “Be free from your imprisonment!” He has sent me to announce the year of jubilee, the season of the Eternal One’s favor:
For our enemies, it will be a day of God’s wrath; For those who mourn, it will be a time of comfort. As for those who grieve over Zion, God has sent me to give them a beautiful crown in exchange for ashes, To anoint them with gladness instead of sorrow, to wrap them in victory, joy, and praise instead of depression and sadness.” –Isaiah 61: 1-3 (VOICE)
To be seen or not to be seen? That is a great question. Start with the healing of your heart, so all will go well with you.
Be seen as radiant and beautiful of heart, and let all other fads, fashions, and accessories go. Nothing is more important than you and the little girl who was once lost and is now found, loved, and celebrated of heart and soul.
I see you!
I love the scene from the movie, “The Last of the Mohicans,” when Cora Munro, played by Madeleine Stowe, is seen by Hawkeye, played by Daniel Day-Lewis.
Cora: “What are you looking at, Sir?”
—She neither expected nor anticipated the answer she received and appeared awkward and bashful, but she is captivated by his seeing her.-
“I’m looking at you, Miss,” Hawkeye said steadily.
I’m looking at you, Toni Koester. You are a captivating and radiant woman of heart and soul — I see you!
“Be careful that no one fails to get God’s grace. Be careful that no one loses their faith and becomes like a bitter weed growing among you. Someone like that can ruin your whole group.” —Hebrews 12:15 (ERV)
A simple yet profound question from a friend has stayed with me:
“Tom, are you bitter or better?”
Life’s trials will come, but our choice determines our sense of peace. Bitterness isolates; betterness unites. By embracing God’s redemptive grace and forgiving others, we unlock a life of freedom, love, and meaningful relationships.
We are all confronted with hurt and pain from others. The choice to become bitter or better is available to all of us. The choice always comes down to two letters, the letter i or the e, b(i)tter or b(e)tter.
Bitterness is a collection of wrongs done by others, causing emotional constipation, psychological disfigurement, and spiritual disconnection from God and others.
The Holy Spirit wants to move us away from bitterness and leads us towards betterment. That is what God’s grace means here—the empowerment to avoid bitterness.
Matter of fact, the verse from Hebrews warns us to be careful that no one fails to receive God’s grace and that no one loses their faith. In other words, we need to watch each others back, rather than plunging knives into them.
Bitterness is the absence of God’s grace, as it displaces his presence, his wisdom, and conviction of the Holy Spirit. A bitter person is always looking to recruit people into their cesspool of bitter complaints. If you join them you’ll get drawn into their emotional quicksand with no one to rescue you!
We become bitter only when we reject God’s grace whispered to us by the Holy Spirit, and when we follow and listen to bitter people. Bitterness is a contagion; it is contracted through casual gossip and always corrupts the mind before it rots the soul. Bitterness has destroyed marriages, families, businesses, and especially churches.
Stay with God’s Word and his distinct and clear voice. Obey the Holy Spirit and become better. If not, you’ll destroy your faith, and walk away from God and the people who truly love you!
Even if you are bitter, you can become better. According to Hebrews 12:15, the antidote against bitterness is ensuring that not one person is missing out from God’s grace. Doing that leaves little time and opportunity for bitterness to take root.
When you stab yourself and others with bitterness, you also forfeit God’s grace that could be yours.
People will love a better you, but bitterness will drive even your closest friends away. Bitterness is a pill, whereby its side effect causes loneliness and detachment. Not only between those who love you, but even within yourself. Your bitterness makes you dangerous—a danger to yourself and others.
Bitterness grows within your heart and soul, like a destructive and evasive tree root. It enters into areas it doesn’t belong, causing emotional disfigurment, and psychological damage. But its damage is reversible. There is hope and healing!
Do you want to live a better life?
Then forgive the offense of others, and you’ll live a bitter free life.
I know—I know, you’ve been terribly hurt or offended. But your bitterness puts you in competition with God. You’re actually saying, “I know better than God,” and therefore you feel justified to condemn. That’s pretty tragic, don’t you think?
But the longer you hold onto bitterness, the more impossible it is for you to forgive. The longer you wait to forgive those who’ve hurt you the further away God’s grace becomes.
I don’t want you to miss out on God’s grace, I want you free and full of life, just like you used to be. I want you to find your faith again in God and to enjoy his presence in your soul.
I want you to love and to be loved again. I want you to stop the cruelty to your heart and soul!
Don’t you see?
Bitterness is not the cure—it’s a poison! The real cure may seem impossible, but it’s the only cure that will set you free and put you on the road to recovery.
The only cure to bitterness is forgiveness. Forgiveness is even more powerful if you were to lead in it. I promise that if you do, you’ll be right as rain and feeling better and not bitter.
It’s those forgotten little memories that can change everything!
Early in 1998, my brother called and told me that my dad was dying of cancer and that dad was asking for me.
When I heard this, I was very upset. Not that my father was dying, mind you, but that he’d asked for me. I needed him all my life, and now, he’s asking for me?
“Tell Dad I’m not coming!” I replied.
I have four brothers and a sister, and they all called me, urging me to visit Dad. A week or so went by, and I finally caved into the pressure.
I first visited my dad in the Contra Costa County Hospital, as the VA in Martinez, California, was short on beds. There, he lay in a bed surrounded by adjustable rails. My younger brother, John, and my mother were present.
My mom pulled me aside to tell me the seriousness of Dad’s esophageal cancer. She said, “It doesn’t look good, I’ve researched the prognosis, and he doesn’t have much time left.” By the time I had visited my father, he’d already been battered by chemotherapy and every other treatment.
The cancer had permanently closed up his esophagus, and he could no longer swallow but was fed through a feeding tube, which was surgically inserted through the side of his abdomen and directly into his stomach. My father was so frightened; I had never seen him so fragile and helpless.
Since things did not look good for my dad, I called one of my pastors from our church in Danville, California, called East Bay Fellowship, which I was attending with my wife and kids. I asked if Pastor Allan Shrewsbury could come by and pray over my father in the hope that it would give him some comfort.
Pastor Allan quickly arrived, praying with my dad and confirming my father’s faith and trust in Jesus Christ as his Savior.
It was getting late, and we began to ready ourselves to leave when I noticed tears filling my father’s eyes, along with the room filling with a sense of heaviness. It seemed as though this might be our last goodbye. I think the feeling of; “he may not make it through the night” hit all of us at the same time.
Compassion began to rise within my heart. I leaned over his bedrail and gently kissed my father’s unshaven face. His prickly whiskers caused my lips to tingle. My brother John leaned in and kissed our dad, as did my mom, and then we all tried to convince and reassure him that he would be fine as we slowly left the room.
As John and I walked out together towards the parking lot, my lips still tingling, I said:
“John, there is something strangely familiar about kissing dad.” I continued:
“My lips—they’re still tingling!”
John responded:
“What’s up with you, Tom? Don’t you remember when we were little kids, we’d line up in front of dad’s favorite chair and kiss him goodnight on his cheek, and he’d say with a smile,
’… Don’t let the bedbugs bite!’”
All of a sudden, good memories came flooding into my mind. That gentle kiss on my father’s unshaven face was a key to my dungeon of despair and loneliness. All my years of anger, bitterness, and hatred; all my doubts and unforgiveness, all swallowed up from the tingly whiskers of my father’s unshaven face!
After that moment, I couldn’t wait to see my father. I saw him over the next several months as often as I could.
Several weeks before my dad passed away, a nurse came into his hospital room, asking:
“Who is your executor and healthcare director?”
My father lifted his feeble arm and pointed in my direction. I turned to see if one of my two older brothers was behind me, but there was no one.
For some, this would have been an unwelcome appointment, a burden, but for me, it meant I had my father’s complete and utter trust and respect. The significance of my dad’s appointment was a paradigm shift for me, possibly one of my most life-affirming events.
Later, I learned that my father had consulted with my mother about whom he should appoint as Trustee of his estate and healthcare. My mother agreed with my dad on his final choice. My sister, Laurie, was also named co-trustee. Simply amazing!
A few weeks later, my dad’s condition was worsening. His organs were beginning to show signs of shutting down. At this point, my siblings and I would trade off, spending the night with Dad alone.
Finally, it was my turn. It was October 7, 1998. I arrived shortly after the dinner hour. A nurse brought in a cot with a blanket and a pillow for me to sleep on. My dad and I talked for quite a while, mostly about politics, which was my dad’s favorite topic. Soon, it was lights out, which never happens in a hospital.
As I lay there, realizing the significance of this moment with my dad, I knew if I didn’t say what was indeed on my heart now, that this moment would be lost forever. You see, my father had never told me that he loved me. I was thirty-nine years old, and my dad was about to turn sixty-nine the next day. I wanted so much to hear those words from him; no, I needed to hear those words from him—something in me was guiding me and granting me the courage to say what I needed to say:
“Dad?”
“Yes, son?” he replied
Dad … I love you!” I said cautiously.
Only mere seconds passed by, but it felt like years.
“… I love you too, son,” Dad replied.
I exchanged “I love you” with my dad for what seemed like all night long! I said those precious and life-giving words, which he echoed back:
“I love you too, son.”
All my hate and anger against my dad had washed away, and now for good! I heard the three most important words every son or daughter needs to hear:
“I love you, son!”
“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the LORD arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.” — Malachi 4: 5-6
The days of the “curse” were finally over for me. For a greater spirit than Elijah had entered that hospital room that night. The Spirit of the Living God had softened the hearts of father and son, and the mess I had made of my life suddenly became beautiful!
“His wrath, you see, is fleeting, but His grace lasts a lifetime. The deepest pains may linger through the night, but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.” — Psalms 30:5
My dad, while broken with cancer, poured into me so much life and hope, and, in such a short time! The man whom I had despised all of my life was my dad, with whom I just fell in love but who is now leaving.
The morning came, with it, a smile and a “Happy Birthday, Dad!”
It was October 8, 1998, and my father wanted to get cleaned up for his Birthday. He said:
“Tom, get my shaving bag, it’s over there, in that cabinet.”
“Here it is, Dad,” I replied.
“Okay, get my Electric Shave lotion and my razor out,” my dad directed, and then he asked:
“Son, will you shave my face?”
This may sound silly, but this was the most intimate moment I’ve ever had with my father. The whiskers that tingled my lips and softened the hardness of my heart, the mouth that finally spoke: “I love you too, son,” was the face I was about to care for and shave.
“The deepest pains may linger through the night, but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.”
… and I shaved my father’s face.
That is why I would not change a single moment of my life. The pain is swallowed up in the sweetness of heartfelt forgiveness and the “I love yous.” For what had become broken has now been given, and the mess of my life has now become beautiful!
Four days later, on October 12, 1998, my father passed away. At his right-hand side, I stood a restored and beloved son, loved and approved. As life was quickly draining from my dad, he looked up towards the ceiling, letting out his final breath; he smiled, his heartbeat stopped, and we wept loudly in the grief of our great loss! I then reached over his body and closed my father’s eyes.
He died my hero triumphantly and bravely; he faced death and passed from this life into the heart of God.
“Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?” – I Corinthians 15:55
While this was both a painful and magical time for me, these events with my father were a new beginning and a paradigm shift for my present and future.
I can honestly say that God used the final moments of my father’s life to make me into a better man, a restored son, and a better father.
Letting my anger for my father go allowed love to come bursting in. Becoming my father’s beloved son made it possible for me to believe I could be God’s beloved son, too.
Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. I’ll see you in heaven. I love you, dad!
I can’t think of any other time than now to pause and reflect on the God of the universe. Isn’t our country; for that matter, the entire world being overshadowed by abnormal politics and abhorrent behavior?
The spreading of evil in our world is beyond rumor—it’s boldly flaunted in our faces.
Where else can we go for wisdom and truth other than to God? All other institutions have failed us. Indeed, they’ve failed God and country!
But, there is still hope!
Did you know that God is wirelessly available at this very moment? He is, and he has unmatched bandwidth from Heaven’s Throne!
God has infinitely more knowledge than Alexa—more wisdom than Siri and has far greater influence than TikTok!
God does desire your worship of him, but worship is not an end in itself; it’s not the pinnacle of what you have to give the Eternal Lover of your soul. He’s after your heart. Your heart is what he wants from you. For without it, your worship is empty and unpleasing to him.
God is not happy with only raised hands, bowed heads, and pretty choruses—he’s not impressed with your Sunday’s best and part-time devotion!
He’s poured out all his pent-up wrath against sin on His very own Son so that he can pour out all his love on you! He’s found a way to make you his very own and desires to be the sole occupant of your heart. He wants your desire to match his Son’s desire to be in him so that together, Father and Son, may dwell within you!
What will it take for you to cut out and remove what is useless and self-destructive to your precious heart and soul?
Is not your life hard enough—empty enough—lonely enough that you’ll go on without God?
You want all these things; all the answered prayers and open doors, but are you really pursuing God, or simply what you want from him?
He’s not behind the doors for which you so wearily push against; earnestly seeking safety, comfort, and security. He’s not playing hide and seek with you. He wants to be found as your One and Only Lover and Everlasting Father.
Only in returning to him will you find everything you are truly seeking and desiring.
Pray to receive him. Climb over every obstacle to find Him, and not what your flesh cries out for, which by the way are only temporal remedies of an eternal desire. God’s promise is that he will be found if you seek him and him alone with your whole heart.
But perhaps you haven’t done so, at least not with all your heart and strength, or else this note you’re reading wouldn’t be speaking so deeply to you. To honestly and sincerely turn towards God is, my dear friend, the only change and the most important decision that you must make at this moment—at this very second!
All other passions, concerns, and worries must be trained on the heart of your fierce Lover and only Healer of your heart and soul. All other methods are simply medicating you. Worldly tips and techniques are not healing you but masking the pain. “Time does [not] heal all wounds,” God does! God wants you restored and made whole—not medicated.
You want to talk about hands-free devices?
Did you know that God is wirelessly available this very moment with unmatched bandwidth from Heaven’s Throne?
God has infinitely more knowledge than Alexa. He has more wisdom than Siri and far greater influence than TikTok! We 21st-century Christians are so distracted, not with idols made of wood and stone, but with artificial intelligence (A.I.)!
We crave Idols that talk back and that hear our every word and answer our immediate questions. Yet the God of Creation, the very One who knows you by name, has counted every strand of your hair and has collected, like diamonds and precious jewels, every tear you’ve shed, is waiting patiently for your devotion and your “signing in.”
He has far greater connections than LinkedIn and has more excellent opportunities than Ziprecruiter. He wants more than your market share and algorithms—he wants all of you—body, mind, and soul, but especially your whole heart.
God can fill your heart and soul, but the Internet, well, it leaves holes in your heart and never absolutely never fills your heart as God can. The internet is designed to keep you empty, shallow, and alone, causing you to need and crave things more and more.
God is not after your money. He’s not marketing you—he’s trying to love you as you’ve never been loved before! He wants to update and download into the center of your being and fill your memory with images of Heaven that you’ll never find on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or WhatsApp.
Did I mention how much I needed to hear this?
My name is Thomas Koester, and I’m addicted to A.I. too. I need more than I’d like to admit the words I’ve written in this article. I, too, am convicted!
Close this post. Log off Facebook. Shut down your devices. Lower the lights and open your heart to God. Log into Heaven’s Throne, and tune into His presence, scroll up to His homepage so that you may truly see and understand. God is far more exciting than X! He has exceedingly more to offer than Amazon, eBay, or Temu!
God is live right now, and his live feed is where you’ll find real life and all that you’ve been longing for…
If nothing changes in your life after facing death, then nothing will ever change while facing life.
While the Spirit brings life, the flesh and all its desires bring death. And this is why when so many face death, nothing changes because they already live in a culture of death.
Instead, walk in the Spirit, and you’ll not satisfy the desires of a death culture but an active community of spiritually alive people.
Being hope-filled makes you attractive to those that want to live, but to the death culture, you’re bad news! Your hopefulness points to heaven, a place unfamiliar to them. Their paradise is boozing it up and partying like it’s “1999.”
They celebrate the flesh; plump it up here, tuck it in there, lifting it to the top, and stretching out the wrinkles. They’ll pay thousands of dollars on their temples of doom. But im afraid you can’t “nip and tuck” your way to eternal life. There’s no fountain of youth, and Nirvana, well, it’s a myth!
Life is not what you are on the outside but who you are on the inside. All that body emphasis stuff keeps you from from really enjoying life while your soul rots away. A joy-filled and hopeful life changes you from the inside out! It causes your insides to radiate life.
Proverbs 4:23 tells it this way…
“… Guard your heart above all else, for from it flows the wellspring of life.”
Your heart is where the issues of life flow from. Live from your heart and you’ll become a life-giver.
It will change you from a sourpuss to a sweetie pie. Just ask my friend, Paul Spaar. He has all the reasons to be sour but instead chooses to be hopeful, upbeat, and positive. Sure, he’s had bad days—heck, we all do. But we wouldn’t know what a good day is without the bad days to measure against. Oh, and the ladies, well, they see Paul as a handsome dude. He radiates from the inside out. Psst, that’s Paul’s superpower…
… I’ll have what he’s having!
I’m not saying to deny reality; I’m just encouraging you not to make your reality about serving Death rather than serving Life. The difference is to stop worshiping that which is dying and start honoring the One who’s giving Life.
Jesus faced a terrible death so that you don’t have to. Eternal life starts as soon as you cancel your temple-of-doom worship and allow Him to make you into His Temple of Life!
When physical death comes, as it inevitably does, you’ll face it, not with bargaining but with a triumphant entrance into heaven. That’s where the real party will be.
Choose life and leave the culture of death behind.
Oh, and be like Paul Spaar. He dishes out doses of joy, gratitude, and positivity, to anyone tuning into his FB Live Broadcasts.
“A wound where there are no tears, wrote John Eldredge, is a wound that can’t be healed,”
A splinter under the skin, if left alone and ignored, will eventually fester to the point of infection. Your body rejects the foreign object no matter how small; the pain calls out for your attention. If you ignore it too long, you could end up in the emergency room.
How about your heart?
Why ignore the pain?
Your heart is more precious than a finger; you can live without a finger, but you can’t live without your heart.
Sometimes, we’re strong in the wrong things and at the wrong times, but to be weak in the right things brings true courage.
If you are hurting, in pain, and are crushed in spirit, heart, and soul, you may be at the most significant turning point of your life. You may be dwelling with God in a high and protected place, but you must share your tears with God, or you’ll be swallowed up in bitterness and left alone on earth.
Isaiah 57:15
“The high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: I live in that high and holy place where those with contrite, humble spirits dwell; and I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts.”
Psalm 51:17
“The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.”
Let God encounter your tears; after all, he is the Everlasting Father. Please share it with him as your sacrifice of pride. Come to him crushed, broken, betrayed, rejected, and despised. He’s well acquainted with all of this and more. He allows it to touch your life, not to destroy you, but to draw you closer to himself so that you may be healed.
God wants to father you …
Trust and turn to God and surrender your rights to be offended, your anger for being abused, and your self-hatred for being molested, raped, and violated. God specializes in hurting and wounded people, and he’d rather be with you than with kings and queens.
The moment you offer up to God all your tears and pain, you are with him in spirit and truth.
Isaiah 42:3
“He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the dimly burning flame. He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged.”
God won’t exploit your bruises. He’ll not snuff out your heart, even if it’s barely lit and barely alive.
God desires to be your daddy …
Give it all over to God. If you do, he’ll see that justice is served, and you can give your anger and revenge a proper burial.
Then, you’ll knock down your walls of despair and make them into a dance floor, and you’ll dance with your Abba, just as He’s always wanted to.
Don’t live with the pain. Time is not the healer of all wounds; that’s a lie.
God is the healer of all wounds, and he’s waiting to hear your cries directed towards him so that He may act.
Isaiah 30:19
“O’ my people in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more, for he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you.”
Give it up to God. Let it drink in God’s presence and love, and so be healed and restored.
Become healed in the name of Jesus!
He came to seek out the lost and broken, and there is no one he cannot save or heal.
This may be one of your greatest moments and your most significant turning point.
Your heart and soul are God’s specialty. Don’t ignore this opportunity – don’t let your heart become hardened again. Act now while your heart has softened.
Don’t live with a wounded heart. Jesus is dying to heal you. Amen
It’s what’s in your heart that will change your family and not what’s in your wallet.
“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out from it flows the wellspring of life.” – Proverbs 4:23
Notice it doesn’t say wallet!
It also doesn’t say Capital One either! … It says your heart.
In the original book by L. Frank Baum, Wizard of Oz, it is revealed that the Tin Woodman used to be a man of flesh and blood, but a Wicked Witch cursed his axe to cut off all his body parts, which ultimately caused him to lose his heart. Thus, loosing his love for a Munchkin maid named Nimmie Amee.
The tinsmith replaced the woodsman’s torso, but was unable to replace the heart. Now completely made of tin, but without a heart, the Tin Man became cold and indifferent to the girl and the marriage never occurred. He wants a heart so he can rekindle his love for the girl and marry her.
You see, sin cursed our hearts, deadening our souls and separating us from God. Without a good heart, we remain lost and loveless, with no way to God. We too become cold and indifferent, losing our desire for God. Religion is like the tinsmith that can give us a tin torso, but can’t replace the heart.
Rather than an all powerful Oz, we need an all powerful Savior.
For those who believe in God and are faithful Christ followers, we’ve received a new heart!
Ezekiel 36:26 puts it this way:
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of you, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”
Notice that God also says He will put a new Spirit within us. This is because our new heart becomes His dwelling place, and from our restored and cleansed heart flows new life for God and others. We become living temples for God.
Now we can obey God from the inside out. Something that the Old Covenant could not do.
“… I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” – Ezekiel 36:27
So God places his Spirit inside our new hearts so that we have the ability to do his will, keep his laws, and create a new relationship within us.
Romans 2:29 tells us that the Holy Spirit changes our hearts. This is not an act of our will or effort but an internal operation done by God’s Spirit to those that believe the Gospel.
So, do what you’ve been born again to do, live a changed life because of your changed heart, and so, become that wellspring of life for your family and friends and to the stranger you meet; to your neighbors and coworkers.
Be the best life-giver because the Giver of Life dwells in your new heart!
With long days and even longer nights, I have written more and have done a great deal of thinking and searching. Each time I do, more memories and tears bubble up. But these are good tears because what was once tragic is now increasingly becoming a blessing.
So, I’ve added more stories and more insight. It’s been the hindsight, coupled with new understanding, which has been revealing the fingerprints and mastery of a loving Father-hearted God, who, by the way, took all my days of good and evil and is progressively showing his artistry through all of it.
His color palate contains far more colors than just “black and white,” which is what many cold and lifeless religions preach to us. He is an unlimited God, with shades of an eternal spectrum yet to be discovered, and a profoundly intimate God, motivated with an ever-expanding Father-heart. He is filled with grace and wisdom. His love utterly humbles me, and if you can believe it, speechless at His unconditional grace and mercy towards even a guy like me.
Thank you all for your prayers and kindness. I genuinely hope and pray that whatever you may be battling or struggling through, it too is woven into something beautiful, no matter how difficult or painful. God loves a “stacked deck,” the more complex your life may be, the more impossible for a solution or cure, the more grace will appear — for our God loves, absolutely loves to come through!
So then, in our weaknesses and fragility, we can boast about God’s grace and that we’re also co-siblings with The Great Overcomer, Jesus Christ. We are children of the Father-hearted God. We are vastly wealthy and greatly loved.
I was at a water damaged home in Walnut Creek several years ago. I was speaking with the mother of this cute little, “Shirley Temple” like 3-year old. A few minutes later, the front door opens, and the little girl lights up and runs to her father, excitedly yelling, Abba, Abba, my Abba is home! I gotta tell yah, that brief moment tugged at my heart. I think it’s because that’s how we’ll one day greet our Heavenly Father. That’s how he wants us to greet him each new day. I think God’s favorite name is Abba!
So, notify your soul and face too, and show the world how great our God is. From your sick beds to your busy offices and lives, from your living rooms to the dressing rooms of Macy’s and Kohl’s — in every shopping line, and especially at Walmart, For our God is a great God, 24/7!
He loves to reveal his Father-Heart to broken and lost people. Our God would rather hang out with the despised and rejected than dwell with kings and queens — that’s just how special you are!
There’s no need to be anyone else than you. No need to be with anyone else than with the Father-hearted God!
Call To Courage 