I Need A Little More Affirmation!

December 8th, 2025

By: David Hoskins

There is a natural drive in every person to be affirmed and valued.  This is something that many experience in their upbringing while others, not so much.  

Some discover this fathering, nurturing touch in ministry settings and others in the workplace, or through friendships.

The apostle Paul and their team built this kind of nurturing relationship into their discipleship processes with the Thessalonians as they worked with them to strengthen them in the faith.  He described their ministry as being like a nursing mother.

1 Thessalonians 2:6-8 (NIV)

6 We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. 7 Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.

I don’t know about you, but a nursing mother is not the first picture I get in my mind when thinking about apostolic ministry, but it is a key dynamic of ministry when working with and mending the brokenhearted and those who are stunted or damaged in their emotional development. 

When a person is inordinately motivated by the desire and need for affirmation, agreement, and validation, it is often driven by a feeling of rejection.  This feeling can open them up to take on an orphan mindset which manifests as a feeling or sense of not measuring up or being worthy of love.  When a person feels, they are not worthy and not valued, it is the exact playground that the devil uses to create havoc in the souls and minds of men.

This type of emotional bondage is normally brought on by unforgiveness on our part tied to rejection, neglect, abandonment, and or authoritarian abuse.   I have myself had to wrestle with these issues making me somewhat skillful in helping others out of this perpetual cycle of bondage.

The lie that we have no value or that we are not loved has a way of gaining entrance as it is introduced to our minds by the enemy during times of trauma, abuse, and neglect.  Lies find their way into our hearts in opportune times.  The enemy knows right when to spew his poison.  What we believe shapes who we become.

I remember years back while pastoring, when in a short period of time, several prophetic leaders and intercessors mentioned to me that they were praying for the Father to reveal to me a greater measure of His love.  At the time I was open but equally put off by the idea that they could see my need.  About the fourth time I heard it, I was even a little angry and about ready to double down on my folly.  When we lack revelation that others see it moves us to either press in deeper or push them away out of self-preservation.  I did a little of both.  

I remember being somewhat distraught by this and I determined that I would either experience what I needed or I would die trying.  I am kind of geared that way.  

I told my loving wife that I was going away for a bit.  I was not sure if it would be a day or a year.   I was determined and my wife Laurie could see that I was desperate.  She said Do what you need to do.  She was one of those loving intercessors who were travailing on my behalf and so she was motivated to see me through to the other side.  

I set out to climb my allegorical mountain to experience a side of God that I desperately needed.  Bear in mind that at that point in my life, I had a few decades of pastoral/ministerial experience under my belt.   

The Lord was taking me deeper and deep was calling out to deep.

I began to discover something that weekend.  It was a key that began unlocking my heart and opening me up to a revelation of the love of the Father that has marked my life and ministry even to this day.  

I had a full intellectual and theological understanding of the love of God. After all, God is love. I could write books on the subject but experiencing His love was just outside of my grasp.

Somewhere along the way, I had believed the lie that I was unworthy of the love of the Father outside of perfection or extreme performance.  I was like the Galatians, trying to perfect my faith by doing good works.  Trying to measure up to receive the approval of the Father. 

The fact is, as far as the Trinity was concerned. I loved Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but was largely indifferent toward the Father.  For whatever reason, I perceived Him as the hard taskmaster in whom I could never measure up.

Many of these lies were conditioned in me through my upbringing growing up in a broken home.  That is a very long story and for the sake of time I will resist but daddy issues have their way of creeping into our adult lives.

Back to climbing my allegorical mountain.

I went away for what I thought might take weeks or even months but instead God encountered me in one weekend.  Actually in a moment of time.

I would love to give you my formula, but unfortunately, there was no formula to my breakthrough other than a deep hunger, and an unrelenting desire to discover His love for me.

It went like this. After about half a day of introspection, I began to worship the Lord.  I remember I was singing about the cross and the song was rehearsing how we can never understand the cost for his son to be on the cross, and oddly anger rose in me.  Not just anger but accusation.  I jumped right out of worship and I looked up into heaven and I said “How could you”.   

How could you turn your back on your son at his most vulnerable and greatest time of need simply because you could not look upon sin?   You are God after all “who does that to their own son?”  

You see that was what I had been taught in church. I was taught that God can not look upon sin, and all of our sin was being laid upon his son as he bore our sin on the cross, resulting in God not being able to look upon His only begotten Son.  

It took an open vision and a considerable conversation with the Father to break the power of that lie out from my orphaned heart.  

While in mid accusation toward heaven, I could see in a vision, the face of the Father, and he said something to me that changed everything in an instant.

I could see in my vision, Jesus on the Cross and God the Father looking down from heaven, and then the Lord spoke to me.  He said “You thought I looked away because I could not look upon my son?”

He had my attention as He began to show a scene like a motion picture of generation after generation of people.  I could see their faces.  They would be those who would become Christians as a result of this faithful act of His Son.  

Then He told me “I was not looking away but I was in grief and yet looking into the generations of the saints that would gain access through this painful selfless act of my son”

Then he said to me, “Look into my eyes”.  I did what He asked of me and I saw in His eyes a love for me that seared me.  It burned something into me that marked me.  From that day until now I have been in pursuit of understanding fully His great love for us as His children.  

That day I shifted me from seeing God the Father as a hard task master to being a loving dad who wanted to spend time with me.  

I am still in pursuit and discovery.  

He is truly an awesome Dad