As a child of my father, I wanted him to be proud of me.
I wanted to impress him.

There is probably some scientific explanation for all that. Someone somewhere has written a white paper about brain waves and nerve endings. And while I appreciate that kind of thing, it does not really answer anything for me. It is neat, but that is about it.

This longing has been percolating in me for years, especially since my father passed away before I turned thirty. On my social media profile there is a banner image I have left untouched for over a decade. It is a photo of a graduation card he gave me, with his handwritten words:

“I am so proud of you son. Love, Dad.”

I placed that quote high above everything else I post, literally at the top of the page, and irony aside, it anchors me. A word usually reserved for boats, but it feels right.

For most of my life I never connected any of this personal stuff, the way I lived, the choices I made, the things I avoided, with faith. I never asked why I tried to make him proud or why I wanted so badly to impress him. Not until this past Sunday.

I was reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer I have said countless times.
For some reason this Sunday, I started saying it and stopped almost immediately at the first two words:

“Our Father.”

Right there, something shifted.

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Maybe the answer to why I spent so much of my life doing things that might impress my dad is the same answer to a question people often ask about my faith:

If God always forgives, why do good things? Why avoid sin at all?

The answer is love.

I did things, and avoided other things, not as a way to earn my father’s love, but because I already knew he loved me.
His love for me made me want him to be proud.
His love for me made me want to impress him.

That is the heart of it.

Unfortunately, we live in a post-apple humanity.
We are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, and doubt comes naturally to us.
Doubt is the serpent’s poison.
Suspicion of love is our inheritance.

And this is why my faith makes more sense to me than any white paper ever could.

It makes sense why people of faith strive to do good in this world, not to prove we are worthy of God’s love, but because His love is given freely and we want to honor it.

We know He forgives us,
but we strive to live into His love in ways where forgiveness is not the center of the story. Love is.

Living from that place allows us to reach new heights and tap into the gifts He gave us.
It lets us grow in such a way that, in my mind’s eye, He leans back the way my dad once did, relaxed in his chair, quietly observing what He created and softly saying:

“This is very good.”