Everlasting Father

Yesterday I was studying my experiencing 
God book and the topic was knowing God 
by experience. 
At the end of that day’s study, there was a 
list of names, titles, and descriptions of God 
alongside bible verses. 
One of those names was “wonderful counselor” 
and the accompanying bible verse is Isaiah 9:6 
which says “For a child is born to us, a son is 
given to us. The government will rest on his 
shoulders and he will be called: Wonderful 
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 
Prince of Peace”. 
I have known this verse for years now, 
but yesterday the term “Everlasting Father” 
jumped out at me and I started to think 
about it. 
The word “Everlasting” means lasting forever 
so consequently “Everlasting Father” means 
a father who lasts forever.
I am my father’s favorite child (it’s common 
knowledge) but while growing up, I believed 
my dad had deal breakers – things I would 
do that would make him disown me or cancel 
me with red biro – I don’t think so anymore 
though. 
The first deal-breaker was if I performed 
poorly in my academics. 
Examples of such poor performances include; 
failing an exam, getting a position other than 
first, repeating a class, having a carry-over, 
graduating with a grade lower than second 
class upper, having an extra year, etc, you 
get the drift. 
It didn’t help matters that my mum was 
always telling us about her father, my 
maternal grandfather, and his policy of 
always telling his children that he doesn’t 
pay for repetition and he meant it. 
If any of his kids repeated a class, he 
stopped paying for their education and 
it was left to their mothers or older siblings 
to take over funding their education. 
Thus my main drive for doing well in 
school was to please my dad and not 
have him disappointed in me.
The second deal-breaker was if I came 
home with an unwanted pregnancy. 
I don’t know why I thought this though 
but as far as I was concerned, if I got 
pregnant outside of wedlock especially 
if I was still a student and dependent 
on my parents’ my life was essentially 
over and I would probably be thrown 
out of the house. 
This fear was the main reason why I 
remained a “good girl” in school and 
didn’t “wild out” even though I schooled 
in UNILAG.
I am sure we all have things we believe 
are deal breakers for our parents and if 
we did those things, they would be 
extremely disappointed in us and may 
even go as far as disowning us. 
But this attribute of God as “everlasting 
father” means that there is absolutely 
nothing we can do that would stop him 
from being our Father – absolutely 
nothing! 
He is our forever father and we can 
rest in that assurance.
 In the story of the prodigal son that 
most of us are familiar with (Luke 15), 
the younger brother asked his father for 
his share of his inheritance. 
Typically, children only receive their 
share of their father’s inheritance 
after he dies but this son asked for 
his while his father was alive. 
The way I thought of this was like 
this son is the type of child that could 
have killed his father to get his 
inheritance if his father had refused 
to give him. 
However, the father obliged him and 
gave it to him.
And after he squandered it and returned 
home ready and willing to be a servant 
and no longer a son, the father threw a 
feast for him and re-instated him as son 
meaning he was once again an heir and 
was now entitled to his share of his 
father’s inheritance a second time! 
how mind-blowing is that? 
I believe one of the reasons the older 
brother was upset with his father was 
because the younger brother returning 
home meant his own inheritance would 
now be reduced by half!
Anyway, the moral of this post is that 
God never disowns his children so we 
can rest in that assurance that we would 
always have a father in him no matter 
the atrocities we commit. 
This is no license to continue in sin though 
but it helps us to understand that even 
when we do wrong, we don’t hide 
ourselves from him like Adam and Eve 
did, but we return to him like the prodigal 
son did. 
Just like the father in that parable, 
he is always waiting eagerly for our 
return when we wander away from him 
and runs to embrace us and re-instates 
us to the position of sons and heirs 
with full benefits and our inheritance.
I pray we would all know God as 
everlasting Father because I believe 
more than all his other attributes, that’s 
how he wants us to know him. 
Knowing God as Father is the highest 
level of intimacy we can have with him 
and that’s why when Jesus was teaching 
his disciples to pray, he said they 
should start their prayers by 
acknowledging God as Abba or Father.

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