What image comes to mind when you hear the
word God? And as you picture Him, what exactly is it that He is doing? Is
He standing? Sitting? Moving or stationary? Is He looking at you? What
expression is on His face? What about His hands? Are they clenched
in a fist? Are His arms crossed or on his hips? Is He
pleased? Is He powerful, or does He look like a kind old grandpa?
Is He strong or weak?
How we see God plays a powerful role in how we
respond to him. At various points in my childhood, I thought God was like a
cosmic force in the sky ready to zing a bolt down to strike me if I misbehaved. Yet the Scriptures present a very different
picture of God. In the Gospels, Jesus exhorts
us to call God, Father, “our
Father.” The picture of God in the Scriptures is of a Father who is good,
loving and kind, which is not often how we think of God. If it isn’t as the
strict disciplinarian more akin to a Sergeant Major then we think of Him as the
dozy grandfather all cuddles and smiles. Neither of these depictions faithfully
matches the description of God as a good Father given in the gospels
Perhaps part of the challenge is the fact that
fatherhood today is not esteemed in our culture. Think, for example, of how
dads are often portrayed on TV – e.g. Daddy Pig in Peppa, Ben in My Family,
Phil in Modern Family and off course Homer in Simpson – bungling and lazy,
oblivious to the needs of the family and irrevocably incompetent. This has led
in various ways to fathers who are either ruthless (and who in the worst cases
abandon their families) or to dads who are ‘around’ but not that focussed on
serving and blessing their families and who are not that bothered to try.
How vastly different this is to
our heavenly Father. Neither harsh nor disinterested, God is the concerned
Father who seeks the wellbeing of all His children. One of the clearest
descriptions of God’s goodness comes from the Psalms: As a father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion
on those who fear Him. To fear the Lord is to esteem Him as our Creator and
King. He made the heavens and earth, you and I and therefore deserves our
joyful adoration. But far from being aloof and austere (as the high and mighty
sometimes come across), God is compassionate and loving. Nowhere is this more
visible than in His gift of His Son to be our Saviour. Greater love has no
Father than this that He gave His one and only Son to die for our sin.
Hallelujah!
Parish magazine article for June 19th 2016
