Feb. 25, 2026

A Strong Father

How do we respond when life gets tough and God seems to be guiding us with a firm hand? In today's episode, Gaby Alessi Calatayud and Christian Calatayud invite us into a heartfelt conversation about the strength and discipline of our Heavenly Father. Together, we’ll explore how God’s loving rebuke and correction are signs of our beloved identity as His sons and daughters. Through personal stories and scriptural insights, we’ll learn to recognize His discipline not as punishment, but as care ...

How do we respond when life gets tough and God seems to be guiding us with a firm hand?

In today's episode, Gaby Alessi Calatayud and Christian Calatayud invite us into a heartfelt conversation about the strength and discipline of our Heavenly Father. Together, we’ll explore how God’s loving rebuke and correction are signs of our beloved identity as His sons and daughters. Through personal stories and scriptural insights, we’ll learn to recognize His discipline not as punishment, but as care that realigns and strengthens us for greater purpose.

Join our community in prayer and devotion as we embrace the nurturing presence of a strong Father and seek a fresh perspective on His loving guidance.

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You're listening to the My Morning Devotional Podcast, episode 1473. Today's devo is called A Strong Father. Hey there! We're the Alessis, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy and to-do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time.

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That's why we've partnered with our friend Allison to produce a 5-minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast. Well, welcome back, everybody. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time you're listening to this. I hope you have enjoyed the last two episodes with my husband and I as we've been sharing, just talking about the love of God through the love of a father.

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And the last two episodes have been really awesome. They've been a blessing, but this one is going to be a little tense. Now, I will say this, if you guys think I am intense, if you guys think I am tough with my episodes, and someone told me that I'm like a strong espresso shot in the morning. If you think I am, this man is a double espresso shot in the morning. And, uh, you're going to talk about something where, you know, we're talking about God as a father. Yeah. And a father is loving. A father is comforting, but a father is strong. Yeah. Take us to the strength that we will encounter a lot of times when it comes to our Father. Yeah. So we're going to be reading from Funny enough, we're going to be reading from Proverbs 3:11-12, but it's also found in Hebrews 12 beacuase the writer of Hebrews also quotes it, and it says this My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son or daughter. Right now, this one, I, you know, I'm gonna get a little bit emotional in because I do want to share Gabby told me you guys love stories and stuff, and I do want to share a little bit of what is my testimony, right? Because I believe my testimony is rooted in the fact that the Lord saw fit to discipline me when I needed it.

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So go back to December 2022.

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We're not together. Excuse me. Is it? Yeah, December 2022. We're not together. We're not dating. Gabby and I, we had been serving alongside each other a little bit in ministry, but that's about it. We were living our own lives. We were living our own lives, and I wasn't living the best life, you know, to be quite frank with you. I was here at church, but I was double-sided. I was two-faced.

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I was doing one thing on a Wednesday night here and then, you know, another thing throughout the week in the world, and my life didn't line up. And I'll never forget, in that December, I had COVID. After I came out of COVID towards the end, I started feeling a tingling on the left side of my body, went over to the hospital, went to the ER. They sent me over to the emergency room and all of that. So, you know, urgent care is useless. They just tell you to go to the ER. If you work for the urgent care, we love you. We love you. But sometimes we just need you to put stitches on. They send you over to the ER. So I got some scans done and it was 2 o'clock in the morning, December 17th, and right before Christmas.

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I thought we were all good. The tingling on my left side had kind of gone away a little bit. So I figured, you know, we're all good. Let's go forward. And we were packing up actually in the emergency room to go ahead and leave. And as we're packing up, the nurse comes in and says, you know, we found something in the MRI of your head and neck area. And what we found was an aneurysm. And it was an aneurysm in your left carotid artery, which, you know, if you are a nurse, I am sure you know what that means. If you are a normal person, you probably do not. But it is the artery that carries heart from your blood to your brain. And it is the artery that actually, when you check a pulse, you check it on that. It carries blood to your heart and your brain. It carries blood from your heart to your brain. So it is actually the artery that you check your pulse on whenever you check a pulse of somebody.

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And they said they found an aneurysm there just outside my my skull, and it was jarring, you know, because we thought everything was good. They said they found an aneurysm there, and it was shocking. You know, we're there in that hospital room, it's 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm there with my mom at the time, and we're shocked to hear this news. It's something that didn't make sense. It's something that, you know, she started praying immediately. I started praying, you know, how I know how, declaring faith and rebuking the enemy. And as a not so mature, an immature Christian at the time, I rebuked the enemy. But looking back on that moment, and thank God, you know, the testimony is that at the end of it in the morning, the neurological IVR team ended up coming in, which is their intervention specialist team, and said, you know, We don't believe it's an aneurysm. We believe it's, you know, an anatomical anomaly.

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But either way, it jolted the fear of the Lord into me for a good 10 hours there. And even after that, but the immature me blamed it on the devil. Yeah. And now on the other side of this, being a lot more mature in my faith, I can now point to it and say, that was not the enemy attacking me, but it was the Lord disciplining me and rebuking me. Yeah, and strengthening you and strengthening me. But more than anything, frankly, rebuking me in what I was doing, because I looked at it and I said, according to the life that I was living, the enemy would have loved nothing more than for me to continue living two-faced life. Yeah, to continue to be one way in the church and one way in the world. And the Lord essentially put a electrical shock, right, throughout my entire body to signal, Christian, you're not doing things the right way. You need to start thinking about your mortality. You need to start thinking about the different things that only I can control. And it frankly led me back to Christ.

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It led me back to a full life of God. It led me back to making decisions that made my life one that I can be pleased to present to the Lord and say, Lord, everything I'm giving of my life, I'm giving to you. So I say that in light of this verse because sometimes the issues that we run into, I think we give the enemy too much credit. Yeah, I think we give the enemy too much credit in your lives, in, in your difficulties, where I'm not saying God is making difficulties for you, but maybe he's realigning you to make sure that he is disciplining you. And this word says, do not lose heart because he rebukes you. Yeah, because he is now treating you as a son and as a daughter. That's so good. And there's nothing I'd rather be than a son and daughter of the Lord. And what comes with that is rebuke. What comes with that is discipline. What comes with that is knowing that I am in the hands of a strong Father who's not going to allow me to do whatever I want, but he is going to lead me in the way that I should go by any means necessary. So I think that that's the best way to look at it. We give the enemy too much credit., and at the end of the day, we need to look at it and say, you know what, Lord, I'm not going to give the enemy that much credit. It is God that told the devil, you can, you can take all that Job has. Yeah, it is God that told the devil, you can now touch his body. So let's not forget that he disciplines and he rebukes, but we do not lose heart because he only does that to sons and daughters. You see people in the world living however they want, and you say, man, they don't, they don't experience the discipline, they don't experience the rebuke. They're not a son. Yeah, they're not a daughter. God doesn't see them in that way, not yet. But through you, he's emboldening you, he's empowering you, he's encouraging you so that you can live a more mature, a more built-up Christian life. Yeah, and it really is a blessing at the end of the day when you see it through that lens of he's a strong father. I think you need to pray this one out. Can you pray for anybody listening that might be going through a rebuke right now from the Father? Yeah, that the word says don't resent him. Maybe they resent the Lord. Maybe they are, are losing heart. Yeah. In this rebuke, um, and pray for a new perspective to come upon them. Yeah. Because this rebuke can actually bring you closer. Yeah. To the Lord. Yeah. Let's pray. God, thank you for this day, Father. Thank you for everything that you have given us, Lord. Lord, we come into your courtroom with praise and thanksgiving, Father. Praise for who you are and thanksgiving for who you will always be, and that is a, a strong father on on our behalf. Lord, we thank you for the discipline that you are giving in our lives. Lord, we thank you for sometimes having to rebuke us, Lord, so that we can go in the right way. Father, I pray right now that anybody that's listening, that's under the sound of my voice, that Lord, if they are going through one of your rebukes, that Lord, if they are being forged in the fire of your discipline, Lord, that they might be strengthened inside of it, Lord, that they might be able to see it for what it is, the Lord's strength strengthening them, the Lord giving them power, giving them authority, Lord, to trample over this, Lord. And as they go through it, Lord, we just ask for peace that surpasses understanding, a peace in knowing that you are above all and that you are in all, that, Lord, you have created all things and through you all things are made for you. So, Lord, we just believe and we declare power, strength, authority, Lord, as they go through your as they go through your rebuke, Father, that they might know you in a more intimate and personal way, Father, that they might know you as for what they are, a son and daughter with a strong, strong Father. We ask all of this in your Son's heavenly name and by his blood.

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In the name of Jesus we pray, amen. Amen. So there you have it, your 5-minute daily dose of heaven. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We pray these devotionals empower you to take take on your day. If you found value in this devotional, share it with a friend, leave a comment or review for us on the app you're using right now. Until tomorrow, we pray that your latte is strong but your love for Jesus is stronger.