When we think about difficult relationships, especially with our parents, God invites us to view them through the lens of His grace and redemption. Honoring a father does not mean ignoring pain, excusing harmful actions, or pretending wounds do not exist. Instead, it means trusting God to bring healing, justice, and transformation in ways only He can.

Highlights:

God cares about both the wounds we carry and the people who have caused them
Forgiveness does not mean ignoring pain, excusing wrongdoing, or removing healthy boundaries
God’s grace extends to every person, including those who have deeply failed others
We can trust God to bring healing and transformation where we cannot
Honoring others begins with allowing God to shape our hearts through compassion and forgiveness

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Full Transcript Below:

No Father Left Behind

By Lynette Kittle

Bible Reading:

“There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.” - Proverbs 30:11

Nowadays, some adult children believe they are justified in dismissing their earthly fathers, seeing it as a personal matter between the two of them and believing God is okay with whatever they decide to do.

But nothing could be further from the truth, because God cares not only for us but for our fathers, too. Like the Marines’ unofficial slogan of leaving no man behind, God doesn’t leave fathers behind either, even in their failures and sins.

Sadly, many individuals have valid reasons for turning their backs on their fathers. Yet God calls us to follow His lead in responding to the pain in our lives, because too many fathers have fallen by the wayside and need His help, mercy, and redemption.

Tragically, some fathers have been drunkards, drug users, criminals, murderers, prisoners, abusers, and more.

Still, God holds children accountable for their attitudes toward their fathers because it’s a matter of the heart—the kind of issue that, if left unchecked, can lead to lifelong sorrow.

Regardless of a father’s sin, God doesn’t write fathers off or give children permission to do the same. Instead, He calls us to forgiveness and to trust Him to work in our fathers’ lives.

Trusting God with the Pain

We can trust God with our pain, too, because He isn’t going to ask us to embrace or entrust ourselves to fathers who aren’t trustworthy, or to pretend they didn’t hurt us.

He isn’t asking us to say or believe things about our fathers that aren’t true, or to overlook their sins. But He also doesn’t support us disowning, abandoning, or labeling them as toxic and unworthy of redemption.

Likewise, God doesn’t give us permission to punish, correct, dishonor, or treat them disrespectfully, even when we believe they deserve it. This is often a hard pill to swallow for those who’ve lived life with a derelict dad.

Sometimes God Asks More of Us

Along with leading us to forgive our fathers, sometimes God asks more of us when it comes to dealing with our dads.

Author and speaker Joyce Meyer’s dad sexually abused her while she was growing up, giving her every earthly reason to walk away from him and have nothing to do with him for the rest of her life.

Yet, unbelievably, God called her to provide for and care for her abusive father in his old age—something she resisted at first, shocked that a holy and just God would ever ask her to do.

After all, why would a loving God call her to care for a father who had so cruelly abused and mistreated her? He certainly didn’t deserve her kindness and generosity.

Still, God didn’t let her off the hook. He asked her to do what seemed impossible.

Choosing to live in obedience to Him rather than remain bound by her pain, Meyer took on the responsibility. Remarkably, through her kindness and generosity, her father came to know the Lord before passing away.

Does God Love Fallen Fathers?

So one has to ask: Does God love the godless fathers who have failed miserably and caused unimaginable and unspeakable wounds in the lives of their children and others?

Some of us, even as Christians, are ready to throw in the towel when it comes to caring about deeply flawed dads, believing they don’t deserve to receive God’s love. But we are mistaken if we see ourselves as more deserving of His love than they are.

The Apostle Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

If we see ourselves as more deserving of receiving God’s forgiveness and love than faithless fathers, then we don’t truly understand the sin nature we are all born with. We all enter life undeserving of God’s grace and in desperate need of a perfect, sinless Savior to redeem us.

Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Intersecting Faith & Life:

If you’re trying to come to terms with a father who failed you, ask God to help you forgive him and give you a heart of compassion toward him. Trust Him to bring healing to your heart and to work in your father’s life in ways only He can.

Further Reading:
How to Offer Your Dad Forgiveness this Father’s Day

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