4 Father Wounds that Open You Up to Lies

Oh Mark, why do I need to deal with my father issues?

It’s often the issue we look to avoid the most in our lives, yet how you related to your earthly father will have a major impact on how you view your relationship with your Heavenly Father. In fact, your greatest struggles with God are often the themes of woundedness that stemmed from your earthly father relationship.

Where satan gains the greatest access to steal, kill and destroy is those places where he can speak his lies the loudest. He uses our flawed earthly father experiences to hinder how we see Father God.

Here are four key father wounds that can lead to become more vulnerable to the enemies lies.

1. Through Your Father’s Harshness.

A father’s angry presence can put a lot of pressure and fear upon the family. Many times it comes through his yelling or criticism, yet it can also come from the performance pressure he put upon you. This will leave you vulnerable to satan’s lies that in order for you to be loved, you have to earn it with performance, achievement or perfectionism.

Maybe he was outright abusive, or maybe he evaluated you solely by how you performed. Overall, you just never felt accepted. You feared him, but you never got near him in a way that built safety and acceptance in your heart.

No matter how it came about, there was a harshness that gave room for lies as to your worth and value.

2. Through Your Father’s Silence and Passivity.

The majority of our current generation fits into this category. Father’s were often hard workers, yet their spiritual and emotional presence at home was absent. They could put on a performance mask at work, church or in the community, but at home, he was checked out.

His leadership in the home was often absent. He was silent. He didn’t say much or give any encouraging words. Most people I talked to have no memory of just sitting with their dad and hearing him speak empowering words over them. They only remember him working hard or falling asleep on the couch. There is no memory of his active emotional presence.

When a father does not speak love, identity and validation in the home, it leaves a wide open vacuum for the enemy to speak a swarm of lies.

He needed to tell you he loved you.

He needed to tell you who you are.

He needed to remind you that you are accepted.

He needed to empower your potential.

This passivity can you lead you to believe that Father God is passive. He just stands by and allows anything to happen to you. He is not actively involved in your life. He is not present when you need Him.

That is why healing of this wound is so important.

3. Through Passing on the Lies that He Believed.

A father can’t help but pass on the belief systems that drive his life. The lies that propel him to live in dysfunctional ways can often be passed on to the children. We only pass on what we know. Oftentimes we need to learn what is healthy before we can realize the lies that we received and believed.

4. Through a Lack of Being Mentored.

A father’s presence fills a huge need to be mentored in our lives. Of course its important to have numerous mentors in our life; nothing can replace the power of a father’s ability to mentor the lives of his children. This does not start when they are young adults or late teens. In fact by then, its almost too late. Mentoring begins right away by him establishing his presence and voice in the home. Therefore, the children become used to hearing him and experiencing him, so they can be prepared to continue to learn from him.

We learn from our parents what they taught us, but we also learn the most by what we observed in their lives.

What example did your father leave behind for you?

What lifestyle did he manifest when he was in the home?

The problem is that very few people have been effectively mentored by their fathers, so they live out an orphan lifestyle. They lack the instruction, modeling and even healthy discipline they needed to live out an effective life.

The Lack of Correction

Most of all, when a father does not fulfill his role in his children’s life, the child grows up lacking healthy correction. A powerful father brings healthy correction and discipline. Without it, we become a standard to ourselves–rebellion and independence forms. All we have to compare is what’s going on inside of us. We have no one speaking into the issues of our heart, so that we can have a healthy objective standard to listen to. We lose out on a healthy grid to sharpen us and get us out of those lies.

In addition, those lies open us up for accusation and condemnation. We cannot even hear the instruction of Father God because we are consumed with lies. That is why healing the father lens is so important to hear more clearly what God our Father is doing in our lives and what He is speaking to in our hearts.