I’ve been reflecting and reading on God as a Father recently, and as today is Father’s day, I thought I would share some of my reflections and what I have learnt.

If there was a spectrum of belief about God, I guess people will range from those who don’t believe in God at all, to people who believe in God as a creator, but can’t grasp the thought of a Father-child relationship with God, to those who truly enjoy a relationship with God as a Father.

The Bible is clear though that God is our Father and we can relate with Him as such. Romans 8:15 says “God’s Spirit doesn’t make us slaves who are afraid of him. Instead, we become his children and call him our Father” (CEV). In Galatians 4:6, this is emphasised again, “Now that we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. And his Spirit tells us that God is our Father” (CEV).

As Christians, Jesus is our model example, so when uncertain about how to do anything, such as how to relate with God, we can look to Him and follow His example. From Scripture, we can see that Jesus enjoyed this special relationship with His Father. When He taught the disciples to pray in Matthew 6, He specifically tells them to address God as “Our Father”. Even during one of the darkest moments of His life, just before the crucifixion, He doesn’t doubt or question His relationship with God as His Father. In fact, He even addresses God as Abba, an affectionate, intimate term for a Father… ““Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Mark 14:36, NLT). What I’ve learnt from this is that Jesus was so secure in His relationship with God as His Father, that as challenging, as painful, as heart breaking, as anxiety-inducing as that moment was, He did not waver in His belief of God as His loving Father. Instead He maintained complete trust in His Father’s will. Sometimes when we face challenging times, it is tempting to think that God is distant, to acknowledge that yes He exists and He is God, but He doesn’t really care about us as individuals and the problems we are facing. Or that He’s got bigger problems to deal with. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

In some ways, it can be helpful to use the model of our earthly fathers to understand this relationship. As parents, we know just how much we love our children, and how heartbroken we would feel if our children ever doubted that love. I do acknowledge this comparison may not always be helpful, as sadly not everyone may have experienced a loving, healthy relationship with their earthly fathers. However, if we have experienced such a relationship, or have such a relationship with our own children, then this may give us a small idea of how our Father God feels about us. Ultimately though, at the end of the day, our earthly fathers are still human, and in a sense, finite. God on the other hand is infinite. His love is boundless. He has the capacity and capability to intimately know, care for, understand every single one of His children. Reading in the Guinness World Records about a man who fathered 87 children, I couldn’t help wondering if he remembered all their names and got to really know all of them. God is different though, and as an infinite, limitless God, He has the ability to know how many hairs there are on the heads of every single one of His children (Luke 12:7), even if there are billions of us. This means He knows us even better than we know ourselves, because I certainly don’t know how many hairs there are on my head! And every single one of us is precious to Him (Psalm 139, John 10:29, 1 John 3:1).

How then should knowing that God is our Father change our relationship with Him? Well, for one, we don’t need to live in fear of Him. We reverence God but we are not afraid of Him. Hebrews 4:16 says “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (NLT). We can approach Him boldly, like a little child would approach his loving father, not wondering or unsure of whether his father can do what he wants, but automatically assuming that he can. In a similar vein, we do not need to be unsure about whether or not God loves us or is bothered about our concerns, but we can be confident that we matter to Him, and we can trust that He has our best interests at heart, whether or not our requests are answered in the way we want. It means that we can truly enjoy God as our Father. We can rest in His everlasting arms. We can step out to do what He calls us to, emboldened, empowered, confident, because we know He is with us and He is for us (Deuteronomy 31:8). And if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31). So if we don’t need to be afraid of God, then that begs the question, who or what else should we fear? “So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6, NIV).

It also changes how we pray. Matthew 6:7-8 notes “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!” (NLT). There is a temptation to read this and ask, well if He knows what I need, then why do I need to pray? However when you think about it, as a parent, you probably know what your children need, but does that mean they shouldn’t bother talking with you? Not at all. This is because prayer is not just about asking God for stuff, it should be a conversation with our Heavenly Father.

Most of the time, I have a rough idea what my children would have done in school, and yet when I pick them up at the end of a school day, it doesn’t stop me asking how their day was, because I want to hear about their day from them. I miss their voices during the day, so I will be happy to hear about even the ordinary things that may have happened that day. The thing about loving someone is that even the things that may seem mundane to others are exciting to the one who loves. Imagine having a crush and receiving a text message from your crush, even if it’s just a simple “hello”. Then it will dawn on you that not all ‘hellos’ are equal. And that is how we respond to a crush that is here today, gone tomorrow. Imagine how our Heavenly Father feels, the one who has a capacity for loving us that simply blows my mind. It also means that we have a Father capable of carrying all our cares and worries, and if this is the case, then we don’t need to carry them. We can safely cast our cares on Him! (1 Peter 5:7). Imagine what we will think if we see someone sitting in a car, with a bag of heavy books in their arms, complaining about how much their arms ache because they are carrying this bag. Wouldn’t we wonder why they don’t just put it down in the boot or on the floor of the car, knowing that the car is capable of bearing the weight of the bag? That’s how it is when we choose to keep carrying our problems when we have a capable Father with powerful shoulders more than capable of bearing such burdens.

The third point I would like to make is that as our Father, God can sometimes discipline us. This may be hard to acknowledge, but it is true. It is important to emphasise here though that God is not some distant being in the sky watching us, waiting for us to put one foot wrong, so that He can descend on us in full force and lavish us with punishments. No. God’s discipline is one we can trust because we know that it comes from a place of love, a place of wanting us to be better, to do better, because He knows that with His Spirit, we are capable of being and doing better. Proverbs 3:11-12 says “My child, don’t reject the LORD’s discipline, and don’t be upset when he corrects you. For the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights” (NLT). Isn’t it wonderful to know that God’s discipline is actually a sign that He delights in us? A potter working on a piece of clay won’t keep moulding and reshaping if he thinks it is useless. He keeps working on it because he can see the potential in it, even though it may not look like anything special in the moment. As Hebrews 12:10-11 reminds us, “For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way” (NLT). This does not mean that we accept every bad experience we have as God’s discipline. If we abide in God and enjoy deep fellowship with His Spirit, then we will have the discernment to know the difference between an attack from the enemy and discipline from God, which will in turn enable us know how to respond.

Furthermore, Jesus illustration of God as a Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) shows God’s unwavering love, and the object of that love is not exactly a perfect child, but one who had rejected his father and insulted him in the worst way possible. Yet, the Father is there, waiting, longing, and then running with arms open wide, embracing this son even in his sorry, sullied state, and pulling out all the stops to throw a grand party, reflecting His abundant joy, the joy of a Father whose child has finally come home. As Romans 5:8 reminds us, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He so loved us even in our sorry state, so His discipline should not cause us to question that love or the heart behind it.

I pray that this father’s day, irrespective of our experience of earthly fatherhood, we will rest confidently in the knowledge that God is our Father, that He loves us immensely to the point of self-sacrifice, that we can approach Him boldly, enjoy His presence, commune with Him, and even bear His discipline, for He is a good good Father. He is incomparable and lavish in His love and care for us, and oh what a love it is… a love that will never ever fail, give up, or run out, a love that we cannot untangle ourselves from, that we are incapable of being separate from, the love of our precious, extravagant, wonderful, generous, loving Abba!

Image source here.