"You'll never amount to anything"

"You'll never amount to anything!" Tough words for an 8-year-old boy to hear from his dad. Sad to say, comments like that were the abiding memory of my childhood. More than 10 years after my father's death, those words were still driving me to be successful just to prove him wrong. As a teenager, I had started playing in rock bands, but the success I gained did nothing to satisfy the gnawing hunger for acceptance and I was forced to admit I was getting nowhere.

Eventually I reached the point where I decided I'd do anything to be happy, no matter what the cost. Even as I was thinking this I suddenly remembered meeting a Christian a few years before. She'd told me "all you need to do to get to heaven is love God." I had no idea how you could love someone you couldn't see or touch, but I felt sure this was the key.

A free gift

So I started reading the Bible, going to church and asking lots of questions. I began to realise that God had created us to know and love Him but we'd all turned our backs on him, preferring to do things our way. His son Jesus had been crucified as a kind of substitute, taking our punishment so we could be reconciled to God. None of us would ever be good enough to deserve this, but the amazing news was, we didn't have to be! It was a totally free gift! All we had to do was put our trust in Jesus' sacrifice and start living for him.

As I realised how much God loved me I gladly gave Him control of my life- music, girlfriend, money, friends and family. I turned away from everything I'd done wrong, apologised to those I'd hurt, gave money back for things I'd stolen and I was baptised, a symbol that my old life was dead and buried with Christ and I was beginning a new life with God.

A loving father

Since then, Jesus' power in me has enabled me to forgive my Dad, something beyond my power, and healed me of my driveness. God has become to me a loving affirming Father providing for all my needs time after time.

Are you striving to be good enough for your parents, your partner, friends, or God? Are you sure that your hard work is the road to the acceptance and fulfilment you crave, or could it be a treadmill, leading nowhere? Can you accept God's assessment that only Jesus was good enough to earn his love? Perhaps it would open the floodgates of God's unconditional love into your life.

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