I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:23)

Not everyone has the privilege of growing up in a home where their parents truly loved them. More often than we would like to think, a parent is a RASN (reviler, abuser, sociopath, narcissist).

It is natural to human beings to desire to be loved, for example, by their father. In fact, most children believe that their parents (let’s focus on the father in this article) really do love them. But if their father is, for instance, a narcissist, the sad truth is that the child is not loved by dad. Narcissists don’t love. They don’t have empathy. They are users, the center of the universe. Even their children exist only to praise and serve them. The whole scenario is incredibly confusing and crazy-making to a child as the years go by. In spite of all the shaming, guilting, abuse and other ugly tactics, people generally grow up telling themselves that their father does love them.

But he doesn’t. He never did. He doesn’t love anyone.

Now, as a child enters adulthood, this false believe doesn’t disappear. However, at the same time the child, now an adult, continues to try to earn his or her father’s approval. We all want our father’s approval. You rehearse scenarios in your mind – even if you had a good father – in which your performance pleases dad. You also rehearse those scenes where you failed to earn dad’s approval. But the nasty dynamic which a narcissist father instills in his children is a no-win setting. Always striving. Always trying. Must have dad’s approval.

But they never will have it. the narcissist only approves of himself and demands that everyone else approve of him regardless of the truth that he deserves no approval at all.

So how does such a person (the now adult one-time child) break out of this addiction to dad’s approval? I suggest that there is only one ultimate, lasting way to get free and it is this – you need to realize that in Christ you have a real Father who really loves you and approves of you. [I am talking to Christians here – those who have been born again by faith alone in Christ alone. God the Father does not approve of those who reject Him]. The thing is quite incredible. You see it in the scripture quoted above. When we are born again, when we are thereby in Christ, the Father loves us with the same love by which He loves His Son! We won’t get a real handle on this until the day we are with Him in the new heavens and earth. But it’s true.

We need to embrace this truth. In Christ, we are a child of God (don’t believe that lie that all people are God’s children. They aren’t). In Christ we have a Father in heaven who loves us with a love that not even the most loving earthly father could direct toward us. Our Father who art in heaven…. And this Father not only loves, He IS love for all who love Him.

This is where freedom really is to be found. Those recurring replays in my mind where I earn my earthly father’s approval or fail to get it, where I wish and wish and wish I could go back in time and “get it right,” are all flights of fancy, vestiges instilled in our minds by a father whose love was imperfect or non-existent. If only… but the “if” will never happen.

So turn the eyes of your mind upward where your true life is. Dive into your real Father’s Word where He meets you and realize more and more and more that because of Christ and this great salvation the Father has given us in Him, you already have His love. Serve Him, believe His promises, confess your sins to Him and receive His forgiveness, and look forward daily to that day of all days when you hear Him say, “well done, good and faithful servant.”