It is perhaps true to say that many of the social problems in society stem from the distorted images of God that people have when thinking about God. That is particularly true in societies where human fathers have not played a positive role in their children’s upbringing. When Jesus encouraged His disciples to pray, He taught them to begin their prayers with the words, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” It would have been mind-blowing to the people of Jesus’ time on earth that He encouraged His disciples to pray to God using those words. To address God in such personal terms must have shocked many who heard Jesus speak. Not only could believers call God “Father” but they were to see themselves as being His children, adopted into His family as they put their trust in Christ.  

1.         THE PROBLEM OF UNDERSTANDING GOD AS FATHER

Why is it then that many believers find it hard to relate to God as their Father in heaven when Jesus Himself encouraged us to pray to Him as their Father in heaven? We think we know what fatherhood is like, because most of us have experienced some segment of life with a human father. The concept of God as a Father in heaven may seem to be abstract, whereas our own experience of our fathers was more concrete. Most of us saw our fathers or heard them, and when we hear the word “father,” we’ve got something we can identify with. But does our experience of earthly fathers help or hinder our appreciation of God as a Heavenly Father?

2.         HOW WE LEARN. From the familiar to the unknown.

In our understanding, we normally move from the known to the unknown. We begin with simple maths and then we learn advanced maths as we build on the concepts we have learned. We move from the concrete to the abstract, from the familiar to the unknown. But we may get it terribly wrong if we take our experience of our earthly father, and expand or extrapolate that into a much greater version, to try to understand what God is like as father. As we do that we can quite easily attribute to God the good qualities we have seen in human fathers. But the danger is that we may even unconsciously attribute to Him many of the negative things we experienced in childhood if we see God simply as a bigger version of our own fathers.

3.         SOME FATHERS ARE GOOD PATTERNS OF FATHERHOOD.

Our earthly fathers may have been good, and kind and loving. As we think about our earthly fathers there may be a sense of warmth and love and acceptance, so that the very word “father” brings a sense of security. Yet we need to realise that at their very best, the best human fathers are only very pale reflections of what God is like as Father. None of us is perfect. No father is ever perfect, and even extremely good fathers will often need to be forgiven. God as Father never needs to be forgiven, for He never does anything wrong. His heart is always pure.

4.         SOME FATHERS ARE NOT GOOD PATTERNS OF FATHERHOOD

I discovered in counselling hundreds of people over 50 years that many of them had a distorted view of what true fatherhood is all about. A minority of them had been brought up with a loving father who was loving and just in his dealings with them and so they could easily understand God as being a loving Heavenly Father who was always there for them. However, the vast majority of them had fathers who had a mixture of attitudes and behaviours that were difficult for them to relate to. Sometimes their fathers were loving and approachable and at other times they thought it was safer to keep a distance from them. These are some of the examples of fathers who did not show forth an example of true fatherhood.

i.          A father geographically present but emotionally absent. For some people as they think about their earthly fathers, it’s not warmth and love, acceptance, forgiveness, and security that they think of. In fact they may feel nothing because their father was never really there for them. If he was there in body, geographically, he certainly may not have been there to bring emotional or physical comfort or strength. There may have been times when the cry of the child was for reassurance, for affirmation and love. But the father didn’t pick up the signals, and the child felt cheated and disappointed. Such fathers didn’t batter or beat their children; they just were indifferent to the cries of the child. Perhaps in their own sense of inadequacy, they felt they didn’t know how to cope, so they did nothing. Sins of omission hurt just like sins of commission.

I recall one farmer telling me that he had never seen any love being displayed in his home not even between his parents. He was never conscious of any affection being shown towards him or his sister. As he thought about his background he could only remember one incident where there was any sign of affection. It was during a thunderstorm and he saw his father lean across and give his mother a peck on the cheek. He thought to himself that he must be wrong to have only that one incident of affection to remember so he rang his sister and asked if she could remember any time there was any affection being shown in the home. After a while his sister replied. “Yes, there one time during a thunderstorm that Dad lent across and gave Mum a peck on the cheek. That’s the only thing I remember”. The farmer eventually came to realise that God as a Father expressed His love in the gift of His Son for him. Receiving that love in Jesus he began to be the husband to his wife and the father to his children that he could be and wanted to be by the grace of God.

Unless we’re careful we can transpose our experience of a geographically and emotionally absent father into our thinking about God the Father, and we subconsciously think that He will be indifferent to our cries for help.

ii.        A Father Who was geographically AND emotionally absent.

Some people may feel nothing about the concept of “father,”because their own fathers weren’t even there geographically, at the times it mattered. It’s true that there were many fathers who of necessity had to work long hours for the sake of the family and poured their love into their children in the limited quality times they had together. But for others, their fathers may have been too busy building up a business to have time for their family. Family life was not a priority. The struggle for success left no time for the children. Some people now as adults have no fond lasting childhood memory of times when their father played with them or hugged them or affirmed them or told them he loved them.

For others, as they think about God, it’s with the subconscious thought that fathers are supposed to be there but fail to be there when you need them most. Their fathers said they would be there for the school play or the sports carnival but they never turned up. Now as adults they ask God for help, but don’t really believe deep down He’ll show up to answer the prayer. That’s their experience of fatherhood. Fathers are those people who promise a lot but seldom deliver. Deep down they think God is like that.

iii.       Some fathers may have been terrible, terrible, misleading distortions of what fathers should have been. For them the word “father” brings a sense of revulsion, pain and shame. Where it should have been acceptance, it was rejection. Where it should have been security, it was danger. Where it was meant to be love and warmth, it was hatred and cruelty and cold paralysing fear. Where it was meant to be a loving self-giving response from the child to the self-giving love of the father, instead the child was given no choice but terrible things happened contrary to what the child wanted. It is amazing how some fathers dealt so unhealthily with their own children and made their experience of fatherhood so fearful.

The true pattern of fatherhood is seen in Eph 3:15 as God as the Father “from whom all fatherhood derives.”  But these human fathers distorted their roles, did not fulfil their responsibilities, and emotionally and perhaps physically damaged their children. That’s unfortunately what has happened throughout history with many, many human fathers.

In brief if we want to understand what fatherhood is all about, we look at the scriptures and see the perfect pattern in God the Father. We should not take our earthly father as our pattern, and make a bigger version of him with all his good points and bad points, and think that God is like that. Otherwise we finish up with a picture of God in our minds that is a distortion of the truth.

Instead we get the true picture of fatherhood from the way God describes Himself in His word as a Father. He is the “How much more” father. Then we look at our human fathers in the light of that perfect pattern and thank God for the good, and by the grace of God, begin to forgive the bad.

There will be many people who have trouble relating to God as “Father.”  It may be that their own experience of a human father has made them confused about God as father.

Or the feeling they have deep down towards their earthly fathers, may be the feeling they deep down have to God. It’s no wonder then that for some people to sing “Heavenly Father I appreciate You,” is a joyous affirmation of what they feel. For others, because of their bad or unhelpful experience of human fathers, it’s difficult for them to combine together in the one sentence, the words “father” and “love”. That wasn’t their experience.

5.                    THE GOD WHO WAITS FOR US TO CALL HIM “FATHER.”

I’m sure that when Jesus encouraged His disciples to pray “Our Father in heaven,” He knew there would be those who might find it difficult because of their personal history. But He still taught them to address God in this personal way, because He knew they needed to relate to God as the TRUE Father whose fatherhood is perfect in every way. Some people for their own healing will need to ask God for grace to help them to choose to forgive their human fathers for the ways they misused their role as fathers, and caused confusion and harm.

But let’s think about our own relationship with God and see to what extent our past has held us back from really appreciating His Father’s love to us. If we are still holding on to painful memories of our earthly fathers it will become difficult to relate to God as our Heavenly Father. The more we learn to thank God for the good in our earthly fathers and to forgive the not-so-good and even the terrible attitude and behaviours they showed towards us, the more we will be released to see God as our loving Heavenly Father who wants us to receive His love and to love Him as we are meant to do.

I want to close with the story Jesus told His disciples to get them to understand just how much God loves those who come to Him in repentance and faith. It’s the story in Luke 15 of the 2 Prodigal sons, or perhaps more aptly, the story of the Waiting Father.

It’s the story of one son who didn’t really appreciate his father and put himself at a distance from him. But there came a time when he mucked up his life, then realised that his father did care for him, and he determined to go back to get into fellowship with Him once again. He started back on his journey home. Imagine his surprise and his joy when he saw his father who ran to him and embraced him and welcomed him back as a beloved son.

It’s also the story of another son who never related to his father in a loving way, but who worked for his father like a servant serving a master, rather than as a son delighting to work lovingly for his father. When he saw how his father accepted the prodigal son he was upset. The father’s response could be very like God’s response to us 31… ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ Luke 15:31-32.

The first son recognised the father’s love for him and experienced the father’s love. The second son didn’t recognise the father’s love. He missed out on experiencing his father’s love because of his continuing wrong attitude to his father. 

Some of you may recognise that you are like the younger son who needs to come home to the Father God. He has made it possible through what Jesus did for us on the cross for you to come home and receive His love, acceptance and forgiveness. Add to experience His ongoing presence in your lives.

Others of you may recognise that you’re a bit like the older brother and your relationship with Father God is pretty impersonal, and you are judgmental and critical of Him. He invites you to come home to Him as a waiting father to also experience His love, acceptance and forgiveness through what Jesus has done for us humans in His death and resurrection.  Praise God, you and I can choose to come home to Him and receive the blessings He has given us freely in Him as His beloved children.

For some of you, it’s time to come home. As the hymn “Softly and Tenderly” puts it

“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, Calling for you and for me;
Patiently Jesus is waiting and watching— Watching for you and for me!”

“Come home! come home!
Ye who are weary, come home!
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!”

Blog No.498 posted on Saturday 16 September 2023