Rafiki Had It Right
When I ask men, “If you strip away your job and what you do, your role as a husband, a father, a brother and a son: Who are you?”
Do you know what I get as an answer?
“I have no clue.”
I’ve come to believe that we stay stuck in our heads most of our lives about what we are “supposed to be doing” and never get into our hearts to discover who we are, as the Father sees us.
Oh we may know all the Bible verses in our heads and have Bible knowledge up the wazoo. But believing it is a whole different story. That’s where getting into our hearts comes in. It’s an 18-inch journey many of us never take from our head to our heart. We have to learn to believe WHO we are!
As men, we are rarely in our hearts when we communicate. We compartmentalize everything in life. If you need a good laugh about how men and women are different, watch Mark Gungor’s clip on YouTube, “Tale of Two Brains.”
Men will ask me, “So, Steve - how do you get into your heart?” How do you begin to see and believe in who you are? Allow me to use a clip from Disney’s “Lion King” to show you.
Take 5 minutes to watch this powerful clip and then I will unpack it for you. There are so many parallels to this and how the Father sees us as Beloved Sons. We just need to internalize it and begin to believe who we are!
Can you relate?
Western culture is driven by this insatiable desire that as men we are driven by performance and what we do. That’s where our identity comes from. We are told to muster up the strength, the talent, the ingenuity and courage in order to make something of ourselves. Then, we die and leave what we gathered to our kids. We often hit a wall and wonder, “Is this all there is to life?” Our hearts are missing something. Not very fulfilling, is it?
Am I right? Let me ask you this: What was your relationship with your dad like? What’s that got to do with it? Plenty.
Simba loses his father and then loses his way in life. He doesn’t know who he is. Many of us have lost our way, too. We were without a father who believed in us, and he seemed to care more about what we did than who we were. You see, we are all imperfect fathers no matter how well we have raised our kids. I have four adult children. You can ask them. We mess them up because we are broken. We do our best and that’s all God asks of us. My question to you is this:
Could it be that maybe you have experienced a “father eclipse”?
I heard best-selling author Paul Young, who wrote the book, “The Shack,” speak at a prayer breakfast. He said something that was incredibly profound and has stayed in my heart since that day in April 2017. He said, “It took me 50 years to wipe the face of my father off the face of God.” I can relate. It took me 54 years. I couldn’t understand how the Father could love me like He does because my earthly father’s actions and words were all I could hear. My father, in my head, blocked me from seeing and feeling the true love of THE Father, which is what I’m calling “the father eclipse.”
No matter how hard I tried in life to excel at work and be significant, or at being the best husband, or at being a great father . . . when I failed I tried to sooth the pain inside me with false substitutes. I felt enormous shame because I believed lies about myself. I felt like God was looking down on me with his arms crossed and a disappointed look on His face wondering, “When are you going to get it right, Steve?”
Simba may not have experienced a “father eclipse” but he did lose sight of who he was. He was the son of the Lion King himself! All he had to do was believe in his identity of who he was and his chest puffed out and his walk became one of confidence. Why? Because deep down every last one of us wants to answer the question, “Do I have what it takes to be a man?”
Want to hear something incredible?
The Father looks at each one of us as a Beloved Son. He is delighted in you because you are His! You are his favorite! When you fail - he runs to you and throws you a party (Luke 15:11-32) no matter how much shame you feel. Why? Because you are his Beloved Son/Daughter. Period. End of argument.
Brothers (and sisters): We are ROYALTY! We have been adopted into the King’s family and we don’t have to do anything to earn it! We are chosen! My Daddy is the King! We were born to be loved and we can stop trying so hard and live in freedom! Live to understand your heart and see yourself as the Father sees you. Simba finally figured it out with the help of his friend Rafiki. The rest are lies from the pit of hell. You know what to do with those, right?
Send them back where they belong!
If your heart is resonating with this and is asking for more - FEED IT! Grab a copy of Michael Thompson’s book, “The Heart of a Warrior: Before You Can Become the Warrior, You Must Become the Beloved Son.”
Then - send me an email at talk@bringingkingdom.org and let’s talk more about how you can live wholeheartedly as a Beloved Son of the King! Amen?
