Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:11-13)I miss my dad.
I haven’t even seen him that much in the past few years, but I miss the fact that he is there. He was always an immutable part of nature, always present.
Now he is gone and I will not see him until we are all in glory together.
A father is a pivotal figure in your life. If he is good, your picture of fathers is a good one. And, at the same time, your picture of God the Father is a good one.
If he is bad, though, your whole picture of fathers and many times, men in general, is bad. And your picture of God the Father is flawed.
I’m thinking of a woman who had an absent father, never in her life. Her mother scrabbled through her life supporting her family. She had a great deal of trouble relating to God the Father because of it. She had to cobble together a theology and an understanding of the Fatherness of God almost from scratch.
She just had no frame of reference that was good.
I did. My wife did too, even though our fathers were totally different. And I am different from either of them. I am probably not as good, but my kids know I love them and will always support them. At least I hope so.
My father made a lot of mistakes in raising us. So did I in raising my kids. And my son will do the same, as will his son, Brody. It is part of life.
But each of us loved and will love our children. And as good a father as we might be or have been, God is the epitome of that Fatherhood.
Romans 8 says that nothing will separate us from the love of God. Nothing.
And like we do with our children, God chooses to love us. After all, we choose to love our children. Mothers love automatically. They cannot help it. A mother who doesn’t love her children is an aberrant personality. She is warped.
But a father chooses to love. I chose to love, my father chose to love, and God chooses to love. It is his nature to love.
Praise be to God.
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