18 Dec Does God Feel Like a Heavenly Father to You?
I confess that I do not naturally see God as a close-at-hand, loving heavenly Father. By nature, I tend to see him more as distant and preoccupied. The reason, I suspect, is because of the relationship I had with my earthly father.
My father was a good man for whom I had a deep admiration, but not a close relationship. When I was growing up, he worked so hard that he was always gone before I got up in the morning, and often didn’t get home until after I had gone to bed at night.
As I reflect on it as an adult, I now see it as an act of love and commitment to our family and me. At the time, however, even though I believed he loved me, I had the impression that he was always off somewhere doing more important things with more interesting people.
Then, I transposed that impression to my Heavenly Father, having the impression that, even though He loves me, He is off in another part of the universe doing more important things with more interesting people.
However, when Jesus disciples asked him to teach them to pray, and when Jesus gave them the model prayer often called The Lord’s Prayer, He began by saying, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
God Is our Heavenly Father.
Jesus invites us to refer to God as our Heavenly Father because He, in fact, is our Heavenly Father. God adopted us into His family, and we are legally His: He predestined us to adoption as sons (Ephesians1:5).
My wife and I have two children whom we adopted from overseas many years ago. They are adults now, with whom we have a close and loving relationship. When their adoption was complete, they were actually issued new birth certificates, listing my wife and me as their birth parents.
Not long after they came to the United States, our daughter got out of sorts with us for not allowing her to chew gum (we had just spent thousands of dollars on dental work) and she wanted to go back to her home country where she could chew all the gum she wanted!
However, that was now impossible. If she tried to get back, they would look at her legal documents stating she was a U. S. citizen born to American parents, and would refuse her entry. That’s how complete the legality of the adoption was.
So it is with us. The legality of our adoption by God is so complete that it is as if we were born to Him, already citizens of heaven.
He Is Close at Hand
The Bible says that God pays such close attention to us that even the hairs on our head are numbered (Matthew 10:30).
We cannot even think a thought without His knowing it: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all.” (Psalm 139:2-4)
Finally, we read in James 4:8, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
So, we see that God is not off in some other part of the universe. He is close at hand!
He Is Intensely Interested in Us
In Luke 15, Jesus gives a parable of lost sheep, revealing the heart of God toward us. In the parable, the shepherd has 100 sheep, and one of them is lost. So he leaves the 99 in the open pasture, and searches until he finds the one that was lost. When he finds it, he carries it home and throws a party.
That reveals how intensely God is interested in us and how completely He values us. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” God is always watching over us.
He Is Emotionally Invested in Us
Psalm 103:13 says, “just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”
There is a Jewish proverb that says, “A Jewish mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child.” That proverb reflects a universal truth that loving parents are deeply emotionally invested in the welfare of their children.
We want them to do well. We grieve when they struggle. We hurt when they are in pain. We are prepared to do whatever is within our power to do good for them. We have compassion for them.
And just as earthly parents have compassion for their children, so the Lord has compassion for His spiritual children. He is emotionally invested in us.
Conclusion
In his book, Wisdom of Our Fathers, Tim Russert relates this story sent to him by one of his readers:
When I was a little girl and my father put me to bed, it would always be cold in the room – especially the sheets – and he would wrap my feet in my baby blanket to keep them warm. Before he kissed me, I had a litany of things I went through every night: can I call you if I need anything? Can I call you if I get hot? Can I call you if I get cold? Can I call you if I get scared? Can I call you if I get hungry?
He would listen and say yes after each one, and I would fall asleep, secure that I was completely loved and cared for.
Just as that little girl was completely loved and cared for by her earthly father, so we are completely loved and cared for by our Heavenly Father. As we reinforce this truth over and over again in our mind, God can begin to feel ever more like a Heavenly Father to us.
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