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You know what Sunday morning looks like. The church parking lot. Cars filing in. Men in collared shirts and their kids beside them.
And you’re sitting in your car, or maybe you’re standing at the edge of the parking lot, and something in you just — stops.
Everyone inside is about to celebrate something you never had. Or lost. Or spent a long time wishing was different.
Father’s Day is hard to explain to people who don’t feel it. They hear you say you’re dreading Sunday and they don’t quite get the weight of it. It’s just a holiday. Hallmark stuff. Breakfast in bed.
But if you grew up with a father who wasn’t there — absent, checked out, hurtful, incarcerated, or already gone — the holiday doesn’t feel small. It lands every year in the same place, the place that never quite healed.
You’re not alone in that. About 1 in 4 children in America grows up without a father in the home. That’s not a statistic about someone else. That’s a lot of people sitting in parking lots on the third Sunday of June.
And if you’re one of them, here’s what I want you to know before we go any further: the Bible doesn’t ignore this. It doesn’t gloss over it with encouragement. It actually sits right down in it with you.
The Psalm That Was Written for You
David wrote Psalm 27. Before you assume you know this psalm, hold on a second — because most people read it as a triumphant declaration. “The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear?” It opens strong. It sounds like a man who has it together.
But further in, something shifts.
“Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” (Psalm 27:10)
Wait. This isn’t a hypothetical. David isn’t saying “even if the worst thing happened.” David is saying: I know what it is to be unwanted by the people who were supposed to want me.
Scholars have noted something interesting about David’s early life. When the prophet Samuel came to Jesse’s house to anoint the next king of Israel, Jesse lined up seven sons. Seven. He didn’t bring David in from the fields. The youngest son — the one who actually got the oil — wasn’t considered worth presenting. Jesse forgot to include him.
You can read that as a small detail, a footnote. Or you can hear it as the confession underneath Psalm 27:10. David knew something about being the one who wasn’t brought to the table.
And from that place — not from comfort, not from a healed and resolved life — he wrote: The Lord will receive me.
Not someday. Not eventually. Will receive me.
The Son Who Practiced His Apology on the Walk Home
There’s a story Jesus told that most people have heard. The prodigal son. The young man who demanded his inheritance early (essentially telling his father: I wish you were dead), blew through the money, ended up feeding pigs and envying the pigs’ food.
And then it says: “He came to his senses.” (Luke 15:17)
What happens next is what I want you to see.
He rehearsed his speech. On the walk home — and it was a long walk — he worked out exactly what he was going to say. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” (Luke 15:19)
Read that carefully. He’s not expecting restoration. He’s expecting what he figured he deserved: a job. Maybe a roof. Maybe a bowl of food. Something less than what he threw away.
He knew how this usually goes. When you come back after something like that, you don’t get a party. You get a door that opens a crack, if it opens at all. You get a cold shoulder that lasts for years. You get reminded, often, of what you did.
He rehearsed the speech because he already knew the script. He was bracing for what every person who’s been hurt by a father eventually learns to brace for: the conditional return.
The Father Who Did the Undignified Thing
Here’s where the story does something that would have stopped the original audience cold.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
The father ran.
In the ancient Near East, a man of standing — a landowner, a patriarch, a man with household authority — did not run. It was considered undignified. To run, you had to hitch up your robe, which exposed your legs in public. It was beneath a man of his position and age. It simply wasn’t done.
Jesus knew exactly what he was saying when he described the father running.
He wasn’t describing a man who managed his emotions and waited at the door with folded arms. He was describing a man who saw his son coming while he was still a long way off — still too far away to have said the speech, still too far away to have apologized, still just a shape on the road — and abandoned his dignity entirely to get to him faster.
The son never finished his speech. He got to the first part — “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son” — and then the father interrupted him. Threw a robe on him. Put a ring on his finger. Called for the celebration.
The son came home rehearsing a servant’s request. He got a son’s welcome.
The Word Jesus Reached for in the Dark
Now here’s where something quietly extraordinary happens if you follow this thread to where Paul and Jesus take it.
Paul writes in Galatians 4:6: “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.'”
Abba. It’s Aramaic. And while scholars debate the nuances, this much is clear: it is not the formal word for father. It’s the intimate one. The one a small child uses for a dad who is safe. The one that carries trust inside it rather than formality.
Now go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark 14:36. The night before the crucifixion. Jesus is alone in the dark, sweating blood, asking if this cup could pass. It is the worst moment of his life — the moment where the weight of everything he was about to carry pressed down hardest.
And the word he reached for was Abba.
“Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
At the most terrifying moment in the New Testament, Jesus did not reach for formal address. He did not compose himself. He reached for the child’s word. The one that means: I know you. I trust you. I’m scared and I’m yours.
Paul says that same word is available to you. Not because you’ve earned it. Not because you’ve resolved everything with your earthly father. Not because you’ve arrived at some spiritual milestone. The Spirit of the Son — the one who cried “Abba” in the garden — makes that word available from inside you, right now, wherever you are.
What the Bible Doesn’t Say — and Why That Matters
I want to be careful here, because this part is easy to get wrong.
The Bible does not say that finding God as Father will take the pain of your earthly father away. It doesn’t say that. The grief of the father you didn’t have — the childhood you deserved and didn’t get, the specific moments that are still sharp when you remember them — that grief is real. It doesn’t evaporate because of theology.
God doesn’t replace a human father. The loss of a human father is a real loss. The wound from a harmful father is a real wound. The Bible doesn’t paper over that with a spiritual transaction.
What the Bible does — what it actually offers — is a door.
Psalm 27:10 is a door. The Lord will receive me. Not: the Lord will make you forget what you lost. Not: the Lord will explain why things happened the way they did. Will receive. Present tense. Unconditional.
Luke 15 is a door. There is a father who was watching while you were still a long way off. Who ran. Who doesn’t need the full apology before the robe goes on your shoulders.
Abba is a door. The most intimate word the New Testament offers for addressing God — not theology, not performance, just the child’s word for a safe dad — is available. Not forced. Not required. Available.
An open door is not a command. It’s an offer.
You don’t have to feel it first to walk through. You don’t have to have the grief resolved. You don’t have to have it figured out.
What to Do with Sunday Morning
If Father’s Day is hard for you — if the parking lot feels heavy, if the service feels like it was designed for someone else’s life — here’s one small thing.
You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to smile through it. You’re allowed to sit in the pew and say honestly: This holiday hurts. I’m here anyway.
And if you want to try something — just try it, no obligation, no pressure — you could use the word. Not out loud if that feels like too much. Just somewhere quiet in yourself.
Abba.
Jesus reached for it in the garden at the worst moment. David reached for something like it from the fields where his father forgot to call him. The prodigal son discovered what the word meant when the running started before the apology was finished.
Maybe this Father’s Day is the first time you’ve been offered it. Maybe you’ve heard it before and it never quite landed. Either way — the door is still open. The father is still watching the road.
You’re still a long way off, and he already sees you coming.
If you want to keep going deeper — to spend thirty days walking through Jesus’ actual life, his words, and what it means to know him personally — 30 Days Walking with Jesus is a simple, daily guide that meets you right where you are. No performance required. Just thirty days of showing up.
Three Things to Try This Week
- Name the specific moment. Write down one specific memory — just one — of a moment you wished your father had shown up differently. Don’t analyze it or explain it. Just name it and set it on the page. Then write underneath it: “This is real. This hurt. And I am received anyway.” (Psalm 27:10, your words.)
- Give yourself permission not to perform. This Sunday, give yourself explicit permission not to manage your face at church. If you go to a Father’s Day service, you are allowed to sit in the feeling without pretending it isn’t there. You don’t owe anyone a performance of peace you don’t have yet. Honest presence is more faithful than a managed smile.
- Try the word — once, privately. Not in a formal prayer. Not as a declaration. Just in a quiet moment this week: “Abba.” See what it feels like to try a name you may never have been safe to use. You’re allowed to be uncertain. The door doesn’t close because you hesitated.
Journaling Prompts
- What word would you use to describe the feeling you carry when Father’s Day comes around? Try to be more specific than “sad” or “complicated” — what is the actual texture of it?
- If you imagine the prodigal son walking home rehearsing his speech — what speech have you rehearsed? What have you practiced saying before you let yourself believe something good was possible?
- Is there anything in you that resists the word “Abba” — the intimate, child’s word for a safe dad? If there is, what is it? (There’s no wrong answer. Naming the resistance is part of the work.)
A Prayer
Abba — I’m trying that word. I’m not sure I know what it means yet to say it and mean it. But I know that Jesus reached for it in the dark, when everything felt like it was falling apart. So I’m trying.
The wound is real. The holiday is hard. And I don’t want to perform healing I haven’t found yet.
So I’ll just say this: I am here. I’m a long way off, maybe. But I’m coming.
Receive me.
Amen.
For Discussion
Father’s Day can feel like a holiday designed for someone else’s life — for people whose story with their dad doesn’t carry pain. Has a piece of scripture or an idea ever helped you hold the complexity of this day? Share in the comments — your honest experience might be exactly what someone else needs to hear.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Bible say about Father’s Day when your father was absent or hurtful?
The Bible doesn’t skip over the pain of father absence — it speaks directly to it. Psalm 27:10 says “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” David wrote that from experience; he knew what it was to be overlooked by his own father. Jesus also told the story of the prodigal son from the perspective of someone returning to a father after everything fell apart — and the father ran to meet him before the apology was even finished. The Bible doesn’t offer a quick fix for the father-wound. It offers a door.
What does “Abba” mean in the Bible?
Abba is an Aramaic word used in the New Testament for God — notably in Mark 14:36 (Jesus in Gethsemane), Galatians 4:6, and Romans 8:15. It is the intimate form of address for a father, not the formal one. Most scholars describe it as the word a small child would use for a safe and trusted dad — the word that carries closeness inside it rather than distance. Paul says the Spirit of God enables believers to cry “Abba, Father.” Jesus reached for this word at the worst moment of his life, in the garden the night before he was crucified.
Why did the father run in the Prodigal Son story?
In the ancient Near East, a man of standing — a landowner, a patriarch — did not run in public. It was considered undignified; it required hitching up your robe and exposing your legs, which was shameful for a man of his position. Jesus deliberately chose the image of the father running to communicate something radical: the father saw his son while he was still a long way off, and he abandoned his dignity entirely to get to him faster. He didn’t wait for the apology. He ran. That is the picture Jesus chose to describe how God responds to someone coming home.
Is it okay to feel sad about Father’s Day even as a Christian?
Absolutely. The Bible never asks you to pretend a real wound isn’t real. David wrote his most honest psalms — including “Though my father and mother forsake me” — from places of genuine pain, not from a position of having resolved everything. Grief for the father you didn’t have is a real grief. Faith doesn’t make the loss disappear; it offers a door. You can be in pain and in faith at the same time. That’s not weak faith — it’s honest faith. The prodigal son wasn’t celebrated because he had it all figured out. He was celebrated because he came home.
What should I do if Father’s Day is painful for me this year?
Give yourself permission not to perform. You don’t owe anyone a managed face or a pretend peace you haven’t found yet. If you’re going to a service, you can go and be honest in the pew — sitting in the hard feeling is not the same as giving up. Beyond that, Psalm 27:10 is worth sitting with: “The Lord will receive me.” Not when you’ve healed. Not when you’ve resolved everything with your earthly father. Will receive. Present tense. The door described in Luke 15 — the father watching the road, running before the apology was finished — is still open.
