God the Son is a concept I can wrap my brain around. His humanity makes Jesus feel approachable, relatable even. God the Spirit is a more abstract concept, but my head and heart can still connect the dots. I’ve felt the Spirit’s stirrings in my heart. I’ve seen Him bring peace and joy to His people. But God the Father? I’m afraid that’s where you lose me. Picturing Him feels like lying on my back and watching cloud pictures float across the sky. One second I can make out the edges of the image through squinted eyes; the next, it’s gone. I have a hard time grasping God the Father and an even harder time picturing God as my Father.
You don’t have to read too closely between the lines to discern that my relationship with my dad has been complicated. There’s affection there, but we’ve learned the hard way that the bumps and potholes of life can fracture our tender bond. There’s no reason to go into the specifics here because you’re likely already thinking of your own dad. Perhaps he’s been absent, apathetic, or abusive, and when you get to passages that describe God as Father, you can’t help but question His love for you. Or maybe when you count your lucky stars, your loving, attentive earthly father is among them. Even so, your earthly father is a sinner, incapable of loving you perfectly.
So when the Bible speaks of God’s love for us as a paternal love (1John 3:1), the kind between a loving father and a devoted daughter, it can be hard to see the full picture. John’s letter urges us to keep squinting, to keep trying to see God the Father. There’s a cadence, a rhythm that beats throughout the letter. John refers to God as Father over and over. That’s the downbeat: God is Father. God is Father. God is your Father. Look again and you’ll find a counter rhythm, the sweet language of childhood, gently referring to us, the readers, as little children, beloved and born of God (1John 3:2,7; 4:7). This language isn’t patronizing, but tender. The upbeat of the letter is this: You are His child. You are His child. You are His beloved child.
I’m well into my adult years, but sometimes my heart still takes the posture of a little girl, doubting God’s love or wanting to hide from Him in fear. John’s words gently bid me to look up and see the love God the Father has lavished upon me. I imagine Him kneeling down, lifting my chin to say:
“So now, little [child], remain in him so that when he appears [you] may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him” (1John 2:28–29).
How do we know we’re His? Because of the kind of love God offers. Though we were once sinners, separated from the Father, He reaches toward us with paternal love. We have assurance of God’s love because He does not treat us like strangers. He treats us like family. And not the way you treat a distant cousin, awkwardly kept at arm’s length. No, God lavishes love upon us. He responds to us like a perfect Father should.
The wonder of this truth may still be hard to grasp, but it doesn’t change the facts. God is the Father “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20, NIV). And we are His beloved daughters.
Wow! What an interesting contrast. My father was an alcoholic growing up. My childhood was tough. He drank every single day of it. At home closet drinking. My Father will be 18 years sober in August. He did not get sober until I was 21 years old. Now he is an amazing loving father. His love for me is unconditional. No amount of crazy things I’ve done in my life has ever swayed him from that, although there were a couple of things that distanced him from me, he never stopped loving me. So I guess I’ve experienced the best and worst of my father. His transformation only reiterated that God is good. All the time. My daughter doesn’t have a relationship with her father and I have had to watch her hurt and pain through the years. She is now 20 and she struggles with her decision making process. She believes in the Lord but her relationship with Him is not close. But really, whose is at 20? I long for her to walk with Him and seek Him daily and experience peace. I pray that for her every day. Oh what a wonderful Father He is that she doesn’t take as long as I did to figure that out. Praying for you ladies in this time. May you seek Him first and fall in love with him daily and experience the love and peace He so freely gives.
Tying to reply to Kelsi but haven’t learned how yet, so just a comment…. when you said, Kelsi, about every path being a stepping stone, and holding His hand, it brought to mind a beautiful picture of trying to get from one side of a mountain stream to the other…. with all of the slippery rocks, and rushing water, and stepping on nice flat stones sometimes, and missing the mark and choosing slippery stones sometimes…. and I look up from my slipping, and He is there, holding my hand…. holding me firm, and smiling lovingly, and I read in His eyes, “Don’t worry, child, I am here…” oh my….
Cindy!! Yes!! Thinking about the slippery stepping stones on a mountain stream really helps to understand what this kind of love is. It’s messy and beautiful and he’s right there with you in it.
1 John 3:1 in the NLT:
“See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know Him.”
I love the exclamation point in that verse. Whether my earthly father was all that I needed or not, my heavenly Father always is. Whether my earthly father was loving or not, my heavenly Father always is. Whether my earthly father was proud of me as his child or not, my heavenly Father always is. God the Father, God my Father, is worthy really of more than one exclamation point.
The second part of that one verse is sobering. It reminds me that unbelievers just don’t know and thus can’t understand the wonderful relationship we have with God – and that they can have it also. This verse reminds me not to be so comfortable with God that I forget to share what I have with Him with others. There is a world out there that needs to know. May they come to recognize Him through our behavior and attitude as God’s children. Let us reflect the exclamation point of His great love for them.
So grateful for a loving Heavenly Father!
I’ve been singing and thinking of the words to the song, “How Deep The Father’s Love For Us” lately.
“How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only son, to make a wretch his treasure”
…The whole song is beautiful. I don’t know why God had such love and mercy and us, but I am thankful that he does.
Amen!
When I think of “father” I think of my dad. My dad is about as good as it gets as far as earthly fathers can. So, I light up when I think of God as my father. Because the love my dad has shown me is unconditional- though no one can love me as much as God, the father. It’s just a beautiful description of his love for me and I am amazed by it everyday.
Erin, thank you for your words. While I have a hard time relating to them, it’s good to see God the Father through another’s eyes. I don’t have a good relationship with my dad. He lies, cheats on his wife and is pretty selfish. But seeing him as a human with faults makes me appreciate and draw closer to God the father because God is the the perfect Father that will never lie to me or leave me. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the father that no human can ever be and he loves me so completely. That relationship gives me confidence, because my Heavenly Father made me just as I am and is cheering me on to purse healthy choices and relationship with him.