Length: 3-minute read

Every Father’s Day, I write a letter to the youths in Heart of God Church who do not have a father at home. I started doing it because I don’t want them to feel left out while other young people celebrate the day with their families. It’s been close to a decade since the first letter.

This is what I wrote last year.

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This is my letter to my spiritual sons and daughters.
Although I am writing to hundreds of you collectively, but in my mind’s eye and in my heart, I see your individual faces… I recall your personal stories of tragedies and triumph. For the many whom I have had the pleasure of meeting and knowing, I also remember your dreams. I write this letter with your history and destiny in my mind.

You are God’s gift. In other words, you are a blessing.
Maybe some of you have heard that you were a burden or that you gave problems but NO.
You are a blessing.

This year, if there is one piece of wisdom I can impart to you, it would be this –
Don’t be insecure.

In my 20 years loving and leading youths, I have seen insecurity handicap so many wonderful young men and women.
Your background is not your handicap. It is insecurity that is the real handicap.
Insecurity is a destiny killer.
Insecurity destroys relationships.

Jesus taught us to be faithful in the little things and then God will promote us to do the ‘big’ things.
In my experience, insecure people feel that ‘small’ things are beneath them.
Yet in reality, ‘big’ things are above them.
So they won’t do the ‘small’ things but can’t do the ‘big’ things.
That leaves them in a spiritual limbo land where God cannot use them.
If we feel that we are too big to serve, then we are too small to lead.

It is normal to struggle with insecurity. But you don’t have to act on it.
Deal with it. Manage it.
Pray about it. Crucify it.
Just stop it.

Finally, may the Prayer of Jabez be your prayer too.

1 Chronicles 4:9–10 (NKJV)
9 Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” 10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

Jabez closed his prayer with a heart-felt plea and I paraphrase: “God, let my life not cause pain to others.”
I can only imagine that Jabez grew up hearing that he had been a pain to people. Even his own mum called him a pain.
Maybe you have been labelled like Jabez. Your family and friends think you are a pain. Now you believe that you are a pain.
Well, the Bible calls you ‘Honorable”.
It is not what others say about you. It is what God says about you.

So make Jabez’s prayer, your prayer – that God will bless you and you may not cause pain.
Insecure people cause a lot of pain to others. So when you allow God to deal with your insecurities, then you become a blessing to others.
And God will bless you… enlarge your territory (influence)…
His hand will be with you… He will keep you from evil.

From you and your generation onwards, it will be different.

Love and Respect,
Pastor How
Father’s Day 2018