God the Father

Rob Kenney’s YouTube channel, “Dad, how do I?” went viral last year. Kenney released his first video shortly after the coronavirus pandemic was declared. He wanted to provide practical advice (“How to fix most running toilets”) and emotional support (“I am proud of you!”). But in a time defined by isolation and loneliness, his messages resonated with far more than the 30 or 40 subscribers he expected. Now he surpassed 3.4 million subscribers and 15 million views.

When “Good Morning America” referred to the 57-year-old as the “Internet’s Dad,” followers flooded him with stories about their parents, broken relationships, and traumatic experiences. Kenney said, “It breaks my heart that so many people need my channel.”

The seeds for his videos were planted in Kenney’s tumultuous childhood. When his parents divorced, his dad gained custody. His mom was legally declared unfit to parent as she turned to alcohol. Soon after, Kenney’s dad met another woman. On the weekend, he would stock up his kids with groceries and then leave them as he drove an hour away. After a year, he gathered his children to deliver a devastating message: “I’m done raising kids.”

Kenney, who was 14 at the time, moved in with his 23-year-old newlywed brother in a 280-square-foot trailer. His teenage experience was full of anger, sorrow, and confusion as he vowed to never cause his own children such pain. That pledge broadened when he realized he wasn’t the only kid without a dad around, so he doubled-down and decided he’d also help anyone else who needed a father figure.

Once Kenney reached his early 50s, feeling like he had accomplished his goal of raising two good adults. He thought he had plenty more life to live, zeroing in on the second part of his vow: to help others. His daughter says “I genuinely think he was put on Earth to be a dad.”

Over the past year, Kenney has leaned on his faith to prevent himself from feeling too overwhelmed. His early-morning habit of reading the Bible provides him with calmness and clarity. Last Father’s Day, his followers mailed him scores of cards (some handmade, many heartfelt). The fact that strangers are celebrating him at all reflects a man who found time to share his story—and a world that was desperate to hear it.

You can view his YouTube channel here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Ultimately, our Father in heaven provides just what lonely and desperate people need to hear: He knows us individually and personally (Ps. 139:1-24), he is available 24/7 for fellowship (Matt. 6:9; 1 John 1:3), he carries our burdens (1 Pet. 5:7), and he satisfies every need we have (Ps. 23:1-6).

Aly Femia keeps an Amazon-branded smart speaker in the room with her son so he can listen to lullabies. But she had no idea how comfortable her baby had become with the speaker. In the footage from her baby video monitor, she overheard a conversation that her son was having with … well … Alexa.

Having woken during the middle of the night, the boy turns and says, “Alexa,” which turned on the smart speaker, “I need daddy.” Now that Alexa is listening, it replies with, “What should I add?” The toddler replies, “daddy.”

We’re going to guess he was hoping Alexa was going to go get his dad. Maybe so he could get him another glass of water before he falls asleep. Or some other bedtime procrastination technique that kids are good at—another bedtime story.

Alexa then hilariously replied, “I’ve added daddy to your shopping list, is there anything else?” The adorable boy replied, “Urm … no,” which might be the sweetest thing ever.

Femia posted the video on TikTok where it has totaled over 3.7 million views because it’s simply hilarious and adorable. Commentors on social media have been wondering what exactly Alexa put on its shopping list, but industry analysts are sure that, whatever product it is, Femia will be seeing ads for it on all her devices for weeks.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In moments of crisis, we can call on God, not just as a distant Creator, but as a loving Dad who knows and cares about us. Even if it doesn’t seem feasible or logical, our heavenly Father is always near.

There was a man who was a good husband and dad. He loved his family faithfully, was always around, steady, and took care of them. His influence, even if wasn’t realized, was central in everyone’s life.

But his family didn’t fully appreciate the scope of his love until one day when they found his journal. Upon opening it, they could see the backstory to their memories. Their happy experiences were intricately planned and carefully executed. He even reflected about how glad he was that he gave his wife and children such joy.

When they could see the backstory, these previously hidden details, in the journal, the family was filled with a new kind of appreciation and love for their dad and husband. They were welcomed into the quiet place of intentional planning and loving execution. They could see how they were central to everything that he had done. Thumbing through the journal, they realized his love for them engulfed their entire experience.

In Ephesians 1, it’s as if the children of God are permitted to thumb through the journal of their heavenly Father. Reading through it, we find out that the experiences that we enjoy so much were carefully and intricately planned. God has set his love on his people before the foundation of the world, and he carried it out in real-time. What’s more, these thoughtful, intricate, and loving plans gave our Father you himself. He loves to shower blessing on his children.

Author Michael Reeves, author of the book Delighting in the Trinity, expresses our basic problem with the Trinity—that the Trinity is "seen not as a solution and a delight, but as an oddity and a problem." Reeves explains:

In fact, some of the ways people talk about the Trinity only seem to reinforce the idea. Think, for example, of all those desperate-sounding illustration. "The Trinity," some helpful soul explains "is a bit like an egg, where there is the shell, the yolk, and the white, and yet it is all one egg!" "No" says another, "the Trinity is more like a shamrock leaf: that's one leaf, but it's got three bits sticking out. Just like the Father, Son, and Spirit." And one wonders why the world laughs. For whether the Trinity is compared to shrubbery, streaky bacon, the three states of H2O, or a three-headed giant, it begins to sound, well, bizarre, like some pointless and unsightly growth on our understanding of God, one that could surely be lopped off with no consequence other than a universal sigh of relief.

While every analogy of the Trinity has its limitations, this picture illustrates one aspect of our Triune God—that they are all on the same team.

Say a family is trapped in a forest fire, so a helicopter team undertakes a rescue. One fireman flies the helicopter over the smoky blaze to coordinate the operation and see the big picture. A second fireman descends on a rope into the billowing smoke below to track down the family and stand with them. Once he locates the family, he wraps the rope around them, attaching them to himself, and they are lifted up together from the blaze into safety. In this rescue operation the first fireman looks like the Father, who can see the whole field unclouded from above to sovereignly orchestrate the plan.

The second fireman looks like the Son, who descends into our world ablaze to find us, the human family, and identify with us most deeply in the darkness of the grave. The Spirit is like the rope, who mediates the presence of the Father to Jesus, even in his distance, and raises Jesus—and the human family with him—from sin, death, and the grave, into the presence of the Father. Of course, like all analogies, this one falls short. The Spirit is a person, not a thing (like the rope). And the Father, Son, and Spirit are not separate individuals but the one God, sharing a divine nature and essence as one being.

Possible Preaching Angles: The point of the analogy is this: the rescue mission requires the interdependent action of all three persons. Each has a distinct and necessary role. And yet, zooming out, they are undertaking one united, joint action: the rescue of the human family. We miss what is happening if we pit Jesus against God, or God against Jesus. The Father, Son, and Spirit are working together at the Cross, of one will and nature, in a united, joint action for the redemption of the world. The Cross is a triune act.

In a blog for Kyria entitled “The Sweet Relief of Grace,” Marian V. Liautaud writes:

My dad kept a coin jar on his dresser. Every night when he got home from work, the first thing he did was head upstairs to change his clothes. You could hear the familiar jangling of coins as they spilled from his pocket and he set them in the jar. When I was about nine years old, I decided his coins should be mine. Over time I pilfered a few nickels here, a handful of pennies there. Before I knew it, I had successfully swindled my dad out of his loose change, and he never even noticed.

Sometime later, guilt gripped me. I knew that what I'd been doing could only be considered stealing. I had no way to explain away my behavior. With a pounding heart, I penned an apology to him, confessing my sin and asking him to forgive me. I tucked it under his coin jar along with a pile of pennies as restitution.

I waited anxiously for my dad to confront me. Day One went by, and he didn't say anything. Another day passed; still nothing. And then another, and another. Eventually, I forgot about the note.

Then one day out of the blue, my dad stepped into my bedroom and said, "Marian, I got your note and the pennies." My heart raced; my throat felt like a marble was lodged in it …. I was expecting punishment, but … he seemed on the verge of tears. But that didn't make any sense. I had wronged him. He had every right to be mad and punish me. Instead he said, "Thank you." And then he gave me a hug.

And then he left.

We never spoke of it again.

I stood there dumbfounded. Why, when I fully deserved my father's wrath, did he instead show me mercy? I didn't deserve it; I hadn't earned it. I felt like a criminal let off scot free!

This was my first powerful lesson on judgment and grace. Since then I've never gotten over the way grace feels. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never does. It's experiencing utter relief and humility in the face of guilt because you know how bad you can be, but God (or your daddy) chooses to love and forgive you anyway. It is truly God's riches at Christ's expense.

When my oldest daughter was about six years old, she and I were having a discussion about my work. It seems she wasn't too happy with my chosen profession. She wanted me to leave the ministry. "I like you as a preacher," she explained, "I just really wish you sold snow cones."

An honest request from a pure heart. It made sense to her that the happiest people in the world were the men who drove the snow-cone trucks. You play music. You sell goodies. You make kids happy. What more could you want? (Come to think of it, she may have had a point. I could get a loan, buy a truck, and … hah, I'd eat too much.)

I heard her request but didn't heed it. Why? Because I knew better. I know what I'm called to do and what I need to do. The fact is, I knew more about life than she did. Same with God.

God hears our requests. But his answer is not always what we'd like it to be. Why? Because God knows more about life than we do.