fathering

Luke 11:11 "You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? 12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him."

These days, so many have no real models for what a father is like because many fathers today just don't do a good job of fathering. I spend so much time trying to help people unlearn the things they learned or "caught" from their fathers or step-fathers.

So to think of God as Father is difficult.

I believe it was Louie Giglio in his 3-part sermon series "God as a Perfect Father," that whether we had a good role model of a father, we can still make a connection with God as Father.

Louie suggests that we think of what we should do is think about what we would consider a perfect Father. And then realize that God, who is infinite, is infinitely more of the kind of Father we long for.

That releases any of us from the negative father-concepts we inherited from our dads. It simply doesn't apply. God is perfect; therefore it would follow that He would be a perfect Father.

No matter how terrible, indifferent, or inept - or for that matter, how good - our fathers were, God is not a bigger version of us. Isaiah 55:8 says, "My thoughts are completely different from yours," says the Lord. "And My ways are far beyond anything you imagine." (NLT)

It would follow that His ways of fathering are completely different than our ways of fathering, & infinitely beyond anything we can imagine.

That's pretty daunting.

I think we have no idea what kind of incredible Father, incredibly kind & loving God we are hooked up with.

Think about this today - whatever we would think is a perfect Father, God is infinitely more than that, & waiting to turn that loose on us.