What was your father’s favorite Car? What did it look like when he delighted in that car or in you? It’s beyond sad that often the natural father has been taken out by Satan in so many ways, but for this question it helps to ask who was the father God placed in your life that did delight in you? That guy, I know in my own life God has been orchestrating like a great conductor, father’s in my life since the start, men who delighted in me, fathers, grandfathers, uncles, coaches, teachers, bosses, pastors.

So what did it look like when your father, (the man God placed there to delight in you) delighted in something or me. For my dad he delighted in his 1940 Ford above, and he really delighted in trout fishing with a bubble and a salmon egg. He delighted in teaching me how to fish, tie knots, cast, reel in the fish. Yet their is another secret that the father who delights in his child has to offer and that’s an amazing habakkuk…

For Scot Barton my new Jesus Labor of Love volunteer he delighted in his father as well and his delights.. Here is a picture he painted

Shhhh… here is another secret that will drive a Pharisee or a Sadducee crazy so be careful, this is the kind of thing the pigs will stomp on your pearls. Hugs are holy and a habakkuk/God Hug is the holiest. Similar to the word play it has that KUF in it Strongs H2263 . is the word embrace, then add a yud/God Spark and another Kuf and you get Habakkuk Strongs H2265.

Like play it can be horribly corrupted, but in its pure form a Father’s God Hug is phenomenally Holy…. Here are a couple stories to illustrate…

It was a Celebration after my last Chemo therapy treatment, Tammy and my son Robby and I had gone on a Jeep Jamboree. It was an amazing fall day in October the brilliant fall colors had come to the mountains around Murphy, North Carolina. Then my world changed forever in the blink of an eye. Standing at the back of my Jeep handing my son a root beer I heard the cracking of stones under tires and I looked up to see a unmanned Jeep bearing down on me with no place to go. I got my right leg up on the bumper of my Jeep but my left leg didn’t make it.

I’ll spare you most of the gory details but the Jeep that hit me had a tubular front bumper and ours was flat so it crushed my left leg just below the knee like a ball and pestle. A compound fracture that would leave me in a wheel chair for a couple of years, two surgeries and the loss of my fibula bone.  There were about forty people in the Jeep Jamboree white team and they all came running at the screams, (mostly mine honestly). They rolled the Jeep back off me and I tumbled to the ground. I immediately realized I was in serious trouble. Hurt badly way back in the mountains knowing I wasn’t getting any medical attention anytime in the near future.

I did what my heart led me to do, cry out for Jesus, and there will never be another doubt in my mind that He will come in a big way when you need him. He came and He gave me this incredible hug (a habakkuk) and he held me until the ambulance came in what took about an hour I believe. Naturally all those people were trying to comfort me and make sure I didn’t go into shock. The poor man who had, left his Jeep out of gear without the emergency brake on, was pleading with me to forgive him. Cursed with Joe Biden disease, (I’ll laugh at anything), I asked him, “how was his insurance?” That took the edge off the crowd, (he must be OK if he’s laughing).

I will never forget when the Ambulance divers arrived and gave me morphine I really didn’t feel a bit better in fact I wanted my Jesus hug back, and I have ever since. There is a place when you know you are in the everlasting arms that brings a peace that truly is without understanding, knowing what that actually feels like is a precious, precious memory. The EMTs put a blowup sort of splint around my left leg and off we went to the Murphy hospital about a thirty minute very bumpy, (which hurt) ride.

When we arrived the nurse began to attend me, they took an x-ray with my leg still in that blow up splint and when the ER doctor came in he began to let the air out and the Nurse stopped him and said, “Don’t you want to have a look at that x-ray before you open that up, and Mr. Dilmore just finished his last Chemo treatment this week, in fact there was a Navy combat doctor who came in yesterday and offered his services if we had any trauma victims this weekend, would you like me to call him?”

He went over and looked at my x-ray and said, “yes, you had better call him.”

Talk about Jesus to the rescue, no doubt that Navy Surgeon saved my leg, anyone reading this would have to see this was no coincidence that this doctor happen to be in Murphy, NC that day and had already come in and offered his services. When that doctor arrived he took command was clear he knew what he was doing. Nurse start Mr. Dilmore on a such and such drip so many cc’s STAT! Mr. Dilmore I understand you have had a little to eat in the last six hours so we are going to do an epidural, but you won’t remember a thing.. That was the last thing I remember. That Navy surgeon did put my leg back together and in a way that truly amazed the doctors at Baptist Hospital.

When I woke up I remember asking Tammy, “What floor of this hospital am I on?”

She laughed and said, “Floor? You’re in one of three rooms.” She also explained that the doctors at Baptist Hospital had asked that I be rushed back to Winston Salem, so I was quickly wheeled into another ambulance and off we went to Winston Salem about a three hour Ambulance ride, but this was a movie flight. Yes when I got in the ambulance I saw a TV mounted to the roof and I asked if we could watch a movie, they didn’t have any aboard so we stopped at a convenience store to buy one. Tammy was following us in our Jeep and she couldn’t figure out why we were stopping, I’ll never forget her reaction when they told her they were stopping to get me a movie, “That is soooo Robby.”

We arrived back in Winston Salem around one in the morning I think, Tammy had called ahead and to have our Sunday school class praying for me. I was more than shocked to see a large number of our class there to meet the ambulance. As a testimony to Jesus love for me that I’ll never forget, the nurse attending me in the ER there at Baptist said, “You must go to that Calvary Baptist Church?”

I asked how she would know that and she said, “When one of you shows up here you bring a crowd.”

They were there then and a few months later they built a wheel chair ramp on my house. It’s really hard to explain how humbling all this was.  I was a baby Christian at the time and had never really lifted a hand to help anyone in such a way; the thought would have never even crossed my mind. Mike Ham, the teacher, was standing at my back door and I rolled over and ask him, what, had I ever done to deserve such kindness. Mike told me something I will never forget. He said, “Robby, you have no idea what a joy it is to be able to help you, it’s something we live for. Most people won’t let us help them and when they won’t let us help they rob us of the blessing.”

Years later as I reflect on all this, I can run and play with all the big boys again, in fact for my fiftieth birthday I ran in a 5k. This was in so many ways Jesus to the rescue. He taught me how He can both hug me directly but also through others He calls on His servants to come to the rescue. The EMTS, The Nurse, the Navy Surgeon, my Sunday school class, Jesus will come to your rescue.

The Father’s Coming

Dennis Rainy told a story on Family Life Today recounted in Stu Webber’s Book “Four Pillars of a Man’s Heart“, about a missionary family on furlough, two children, a little boy age 3 and a little girl age 6. They had been blessed with a stay at a fabulous lake house with a dock and a boat house. The children were outside playing being watched by their 12 year old niece, the father was tinkering in the boat house. The two girls became distracted and didn’t notice the three year old had caught sight of that shiny aluminum boat down at the dock and decided he would like to climb aboard. Being three he fell in making his attempt, falling right between the boat and the dock plunging into the water with a great splash. The niece let out a blood curdling scream, the father hearing it rushed out and was pointed to the place where the little boy had fallen in the water.

The father dove in but the water was too murky to see anything, though only a few feet deep. He desperately searched for his little boy till he could hold his breath no longer he came up. He then took a big breath and went down again, searching and searching desperately trying to find his precious son, yet once again beyond need for air he surfaced to take a third breath feeling he had no more time to save his sons life, he reached out stretching all he could with both his arms and legs and miraculously he felt his boy where he did not expect. The little guy had a death grip on the post holding the dock, it still took even more precious moments to pry his grip from the dock finally he brought his treasure to the surface and began to resuscitate him.

The boy was OK, but it still took about 20 minutes for the both of them to get a hold of reality. Finally the father asked the little guy why he was holding on so tight to that post, his answer is too deep for words and brings me so much hope. He said,”I was holding on waiting for you dad, I knew you would come.” Let that sink in, have you ever been in so deep all you could do was cling onto that faith that your heavenly father would come?