Heavenly Father—
I may call You Father.
My earthly father was absent through much of my childhood. You see the space in my heart where a father should have been. You know the silence, the distance, the questions, and the longing that grew there. Yet I call You Father, and You want me to call You Father.
You do not hold me at a distance until I have learned to obey perfectly. You do not withdraw when I fail to look as I think You would have me look, when I say what I should not say, or when I regard myself in ways that bring shame upon Your work of grace within me.
You see me, and You know me.
While I was still within my mother, You knew me. Before I knew how to call, You were calling me. Before I knew my own name, You had prepared a new name for me. You call me by that name now, and I answer.
Teach me to answer yes when the world insists that You are absent.
Teach me to say yes when the darkness tells me that You have no love for me. Teach me to say:
Yes, You are here.
Yes, I am known.
Yes, I am upheld by a loving God.
Yes, I have been called by name.
Yes, I belong to You.
You have placed something within my heart that continually reminds me of You. You are near like my breath. Every cell of my body bears witness to the life You sustain. Every breath entering and leaving me testifies that the very foundation of my life is surrounded by Your presence and Your love.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?
If I rise into the morning, You are there. If I descend into darkness, You are there. If I lose my way and sink into the mire and waste—the swirling nothing this world offers—You are there. You reach into the depths and lift me up and out of myself.
Where can I go that You are not already present, receiving me?
When the old emptiness speaks, teach my heart to answer:
I have a Father.
He sees me.
He knows me.
He has not abandoned me.
You do more than fill the space left by an absent father. You reveal what fatherhood was always meant to be.
Come to me now like the wind.
Fill my sails and direct my life. I cannot command the wind, but I can raise the sail. Teach me to surrender to the movement of Your Spirit. Carry me where obedience leads, even when I cannot see the shore.
And I pray tonight for those who have lost their way.
I pray for those whose sails have been torn and battered by the journey. I pray for those who no longer have sails, who have stopped expecting the wind, or who have traded their sails for bread that has become stale and for drink that cannot quench their thirst.
Find them, Father.
Sit beside those who no longer know how to move. Give bread to the hungry and living water to the thirsty. Bring new cloth to those whose sails hang in ruins. Restore within them the courage to believe that Your wind may still rise.
Breathe upon us again.
Lift what has fallen.
Mend what has torn.
Reorient what has drifted.
Awaken what has grown numb.
Call home those who have wandered far.
When Your wind begins to rise, teach us to answer—not with great promises of our own strength, but with one quiet, trusting word:
Yes.
Yes, Father, You are here.
Yes, Father, I am known.
Yes, Father, I am Yours.
Yes, Father, fill my sails.
Yes, Father, bring us home.
Let every breath become another quiet yes to Your fatherly love.
Before I looked for You, You knew me. Before I called, You were near. Before I learned to say “Father,” You had already set Your love upon me.
Abba, Father, I belong to You.
Amen.
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