God’s F Words.
True Stories from an Imperfect Christian
God has a few F words worth talking about. They’re probably not the ones you’re thinking of.
I’m a regular guy who has spent most of his life raising a family, running businesses, making mistakes, and trying to understand where God fits into all of it. These are the stories and lessons I picked up along the way.
Paperback · 159 printed pages · ISBN 978-1-0658845-0-7 · Phat Dad Publishing
Honest enough to admit the mess.
Hopeful enough to keep going.
Some stories are funny. Some are difficult. Every chapter brings together lived experience, Scripture, reflection questions, and a short prayer. Bring your questions. There’s room for them here.
God’s F Words, one by one.
These ten themes run through the ordinary, unpredictable places where faith becomes personal.
Select any word to discover the stories behind that chapter.
- Faith is hard to explain, so this chapter doesn’t try. It shows what faith has moved in one ordinary life: a nine-year-old saved on a curb in Listowel, a young man in tears at an altar he only walked toward to impress a girl, and years later, a tired driver apologizing to God in 401 traffic. It’s about learning to lean back before you know what happens next.
- Most of us think freedom means nobody’s stopping us. This chapter asks a harder question: what’s shaping the choices we think are entirely ours? I tell you about planning my drive home around liquor stores, walking away from a steady tech job at the kitchen table, and two gas station moments twenty years apart. I got one right and one wrong. Freedom turns out to be a choice you keep making.
- Nobody picks their family, and this chapter gets raw about mine: a father who was frightening when he drank and wonderful when he didn’t, a hard conversation with Lori about who breaks the tie, and people who showed up in a hospital hallway without sharing a drop of my blood. You don’t choose what gets handed down to you. You do get a say in what you hand forward.
- It starts with me crying in the produce section, unable to choose between two cucumbers. What carried me through wasn’t one big rescue; it was a high school group chat that never went quiet. From there, the chapter looks at the friends who sharpen your faith and the ones who stay when things get dark. It also looks at why even the best friend was never meant to be your saviour.
- Yes, I keep a colour-coded spreadsheet of dad jokes. This chapter makes the case that taking God seriously doesn’t mean leaving your sense of humour in the parking lot. Jesus’ first miracle kept a party going, and I spent one Vacation Bible School week as Cowboy Rob, with bananas in my holsters. It ends with a fall fair I still haven’t made it to, and a God who rejoices over you with singing.
- “I know what I need to do.” I said it for years while choosing the couch and the Cheez-Its. Then a hundred extra pounds and a blunt doctor turned it into a matter of life or death. This chapter is about the gap between knowing and doing, and the prayer that finally changed things: not “God, fix this,” but “give me the nerve to start.” Fortitude turns out to be the same small choice, made again and again.
- Most of us don’t think about our foundation until something starts to crack. After decades of looking at what’s under the floor, I’ve become a lot more interested in what’s under me. This chapter digs into Jesus’ story of two builders and one storm, and the “first, let me” excuses we use to keep Him waiting at the door. It also explains why you don’t have to hang the pictures before you let Him in.
- I’m terrified of moths, a parrot nearly finished me off in Barbados, and my third date with Lori involved a bear, a snake and a bee in about ninety seconds. The small fears are funny. The bigger ones aren’t: a heart that kept slipping out of rhythm, and a morning I woke up on the pavement beside my car. This chapter is about telling when fear is warning you and when it has started making your decisions.
- I lost my first phone line at seventeen because my mom told me to “just pay a bit.” Money has been teaching me about myself ever since. A Costco cart, a test drive in a car that could park itself, and a pair of smart glasses that mostly sat on a shelf: this chapter follows the treasure to the heart. It ends on the one thing money has never been able to tell you, which is what you’re worth.
- Faith opens this book and Forgiveness closes it. This chapter starts where forgiveness actually costs something: a sister I kept praying for through gritted teeth, and a store manager who stole from me and later turned up on a job site where one word from me could have followed him. It’s honest about the difference between patience, trust and forgiveness. It also faces the hardest person to forgive, the one in the mirror.
Look inside. Start with Fear.
Read the Fear chapter excerpt, followed by discussion questions and a Notes & Thoughts page.
Fear
A moth, a parrot, a very eventful third date, and the harder fears that show up when life changes without warning.
Fear: read the excerpt
The opening of Chapter 8, exactly as supplied by the author.
Open chapter excerpt (PDF) ↗Questions & Notes
Five questions, a closing prayer, and a lined Notes & Thoughts page.
Open reflection pages (PDF) ↗Keep the conversation going.
Each chapter includes questions and space for your thoughts. A separate free Discussion & Reflection Guide is in preparation for readers and small groups.
The free companion page will be linked here when it is available. No download is being advertised yet.
When I’m afraid, stay close. Remind me You’re just down the hall.
From the chapter on FearPick up the book.
Bring your questions.
God’s F Words is available in paperback through Amazon.ca.
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