THE HEART OF A FATHER

Introduction

There are many titles we could use to describe God—Creator, Savior, Comforter, King, etc—but this week I want to consider God's role as our “Father.” Not only did God create us and, figuratively speaking, give birth to us, but also He is our Father (Deuteronomy 32:6). What does it mean to be a father? To be a father is to have a child, to care for a child (Deuteronomy 32:10), to raise a child (Isaiah 46:3)—if necessary, to discipline a child (Hebrews 12:5-6). It is to provide for your child (Nehemiah 9:19-21), to sacrifice for your child (1 John 4:9-10), to experience your child's heartaches and wipe the tears from their eyes (Isaiah 25:8). To be a father is to delight in your child and to rejoice over them (Zephaniah 3:17). And sometimes, to be a father is to endure a broken heart. Your child may rebel (Isaiah 1:2)... They may despise and reject you (Isaiah 1:4)... They may run away from home (Luke 15:11-13)... But, to be a father—to be a parent, really—is to pour your love out onto your child, regardless of whether or not they love you back. I hope in this week's devotion you will marvel at how God has the heart of a Father—that He loves us unconditionally and that, like any good Father, He only wants the best for us.

Foreknowledge

I can only imagine the emotion of the father of an unborn child. All the hopes and expectations rolled up into some very big questions: “Who is my child going to grow up to be? What is he or she going to be like? Will they disappoint me? Will I disappoint them? Will they love me? Will I love them?” Even though the father may fall instantly in love with his child the moment they are born, still he cannot say, “I chose you.” This is why, no matter how great our human fathers may be, God's love for us is always better. Why? Because God, knowing who we would be and all the mistakes we would make, still chose to make us. As Psalm 139:13-16 says: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb... My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

ccc God did not use an assembly line to create you. You were hand-crafted, uniquely and individually shaped in the hands of the Potter. You are a custom piece that God was delighted to make. There is no one else quite like you, and you can be sure that God wanted you, individually, to be born. The same thing cannot be said of our earthly fathers—as wonderful as they may be. So, what is the difference between our earthly father and our heavenly Father? In a word—foreknowledge. For each one of you, God can say, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5).

God's Fatherly Qualities

I titled this section “God's Fatherly Qualities.” But really I should call it “a fathers' godly qualities,” because God does not take after fathers, but rather, fathers take after God. The Bible says that we are made in God's image (Genesis 1:27)—not vice versa. It also says that we love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). In the same way, all of the good qualities that we see in our earthly fathers are qualities that come from God. Our heavenly Father is the perfect picture of what a father should be.

ccc Hosea 11:1-9 provides us with a beautiful picture of how God feels about His children (in this example, Ephraim and Israel): “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms... I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them... How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? ...My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused... I will not come in wrath.” I hear, in this passage, a deep longing. I sense how God's heart aches for His rebellious children. Not only have they gotten in with the wrong crowd and put themselves in harm's way, but also they have forsaken their Father... their Father, who raised them from birth, who gave them His love, who taught them to walk, and stooped over to feed them.

ccc Several times in Scripture we hear that God “will never leave... nor forsake” His children (e.g., Deuteronomy 31:6). There are few things a father wouldn't do to help his child. A father would jump into a raging river to save his drowning child. And if his child were lost, he would stop at nothing to find them. The story that I am going to share with you is not quite so dramatic, but I think it illustrates my point. When I was in High School, I decided to get involved in caving. (Some people are more familiar with the term “spelunking.”) Being the impulsive young adult that I was, I wrote to all of the caving groups in my home state of Illinois (and even a few in some of the surrounding states as well). Receiving a good response from one of the groups in particular, I decided to become a member. The meetings for this group were held on Friday evenings. Unable to drive myself at the time, my dad drove me to the meetings so I could pursue my passion for the underground. (Did I mention that the meeting place was 2 hours from home one way?) I quickly started going on caving trips, but I was still underage. As a result, the leaders of the cave trips required my father to come with me. He did.

ccc Of all the caves I dragged my father into, perhaps the one most worthy of mention is “Wayne's Cave.” Although the first little stretch of the cave is fairly mild, it quickly reaches an apparent dead-end. The astute caver, however, would probably notice the small hula-hoop-sized opening at foot level. The only way to continue on into the rest of the cave is through that opening... so my dad got down on his hands and knees—and at times on his belly—to navigate his way through “the crawlway” towards the more open cave passages on the other side. The length of the crawlway is 1500 feet—that is to say, all crawling and no standing for 1500 feet. At the tightest point of the crawlway, your belly touches the floor, your back touches the ceiling, and—at least with the typical caving helmet on—you have to decide which wall (right or left) you would like your head to face as you squeeze through on your belly. In total, it takes about 45 minutes to an hour of crawling—30 minutes if you're in good shape—just to get yourself through the crawlway. One way in... one way out. And it always took longer once you had worn yourself out. It certainly wasn't something my father would've chosen to do on his own. But out of love for me, he got down on his hands and knees—and even on his belly—and made his way through that cold and mucky stone-encased crawlway.

ccc This story of my father's love for me is a picture of God's love for humanity. The Bible says that “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). We have rebelled against our heavenly Father (Isaiah 1:2). We have run away from home. We—like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-24)—have spent our inheritance of eternal life on worthless things and have gotten ourselves stuck in the crawlway of our own muck and sin. No more inheritance—no more eternal life. But God said of us, “How can I give you up? How can I hand you over to death?” And so God came down to earth, joining us in our mucky crawlway, just as the Bible says (John 1:1,14): “The Word”—who also “was God” (verse 1)—“became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (verse 14). God the Son took on flesh and died that He might redeem us from the entrapment of our sin: “For God [the Father] so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son”—God the Son—“that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God did not abandon us to our fate. As He has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Final Thoughts

This week, I hope you will join me in giving thanks to God for your earthly fathers and all of their God-given qualities. Not only that, but I hope you will also be thankful that God Himself is your father—He is a father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5-6). Please know that God holds you close to His heart (Isaiah 40:11) and cares for you deeply. For those whose earthly fathers have passed away, may God give you comfort in His unfailing promises (Isaiah 46:4): “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Happy Father's Day!