"The Voice Of A Father"

There is no other voice like the voice of a father. Some men I know have been so deeply hurt by their fathers that they still wince at the sound of his voice. But the faint echo I can now hear of my father’s voice still comforts me. Because he died when I was so young, I can’t recall much of what he said to me, but I can still remember the confidence I felt just in hearing his voice filling our home. I didn’t need for him to be talking specifically to me. He could have been speaking with my mom or with my sisters. It was his voice alone that assured me he was there and that I was safe. But after he died, the house felt empty and I felt unprotected. That vacant feeling lingered with me into my own manhood, and it kept me running to the window of my heart, hoping to hear my father’s voice again. I’d had given my right thumb to hear my dad shouting the same question to me that Adam heard from the Father in the Garden – “Where are you, Alex?”

When God called out in the Garden, Adam knew his voice. And yet he didn’t know it in the same way as he did before. He listened now to the voice of God through a filter of shame and fear. Until then, Adam was familiar with only three voices – the Father’s, his wife’s and his own. Then he heard the strange voice of the serpent, casting doubts about how safe it is to listen only to the voice of his Father. And so he made that fatal error. For the first time, Adam trembled at the sound of his Father’s voice, and it sounded to him more like the voice of a stranger than the safe voice he had known before. So he scurried away confused, seeking to hide and cover up, vulnerable and feeling nakedly exposed. Then God asked him, “Who told you that you are naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”