God our Father

Most of our boys, and many of our students come from single-mother households, or have a father who doesn’t care about them. It has been neat to see how Jose has come alongside the boys and been a brother/friend/almost father figure to them, and led them to our heavenly father.

The churches in our area teach a lot of legalism and works based faith, and one of those weird ideas that they have is that you can only worship God in a church. The discipleship boys brought this up to Jose once, and Jose had been praying about this complicated situations. This is a hard thing because you can’t prove anything by just talking about worshiping God, it has to be an experience that others must have.

The next time that the boys met, Jose was playing a song on the guitar about the prostitute who came an anointed Jesus’ feet. During this time God gave Jose an image. This was a moment that he was reliving from when he was a boy. One time he broke a bowl and his dad hit him really hard, but in this picture, God showed up in the place of his dad, and said, “It is ok, you are allowed to break things and you will grow”. Jose shared these thought with the boys and they all began to cry. This was the perfect image that the boys needed from God, showing that He is a merciful and loving God, the opposite of what they had been told their whole life. They were really able to understand that he cares for them and they will grow in Him, their heavenly father.
Afterwards, Jose asked them why they were ALL crying. They said, “its because we felt God’s hugs, and we felt His presence, He was here, and we CAN worship Him and be with Him outside of the Church!” Jose was so happy that God had answered his prayers in this way. Not only were the boys able to see more of God’s true character, but they also had the opportunity to experience God’s presence and somewhere outside of the church. Words can only go so far, but when God shows up and people experience His presence and power, hearts are changed.