On this father’s day weekend. Consider the Fatherhood of our loving God.
[Galatians 4:1-7 NASB95] 1 Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. 3 So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. 4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
As the father of three, all adults now, I can tell you there is no greater joy. Ups and downs, laughter and pain, it all melds into a lifelong bond of love that is not broken. It’s been said the goal of parenting is independence. But the release of kids growing up is difficult because the love of an involved father never stops. It never stops caring, or rejoicing in triumphs, or crying inside when skinned knees turn to life’s times of breaking us/them.
At 72, with adult kids, I can tell you the release does make things different. But the fires ignited at their coming into being are still glowing fervent in father’s heart. They always will be.
Mostly what changes you are now longer driving them to education/schooling and growing, or overseeing it all. You make the transition riding in the back seat. Now observing on the road to their schooling/education, and growing. Nearby to give advice, counsel, comfort, and love in the good and difficult times…. if asked. Enjoying the journey, sometimes laughing and sometimes crying with them.
But love is no longer in a place of commanding obedience, and you often must refrain from the “I told you so… all your life” you think they may deserve.
I am grateful for the example of a Heavenly Father that is faithful. He cannot be unfaithful. He is faithful when I have proven myself faithless and fallen. His love endures, His mercies new every morning.
When we begin the parenting journey. We are correcting in love, sometimes under the threat of the rod, because we are in training and protecting mode. But our reason for requesting obedience is never simply “Because I said so!”. It is based on a deep seated love and concern for the son’s/daughter’s/child’s highest good, growth and development. Our joy is an obedience based in the understanding of that/our love. What we want to see/have is an obedience that is based on an understanding of our love. Not the threat of the rod, or forced cowerded submission to “”Because I said so!” That is for babies without understanding at first, but not children who come to understand our love.
Even so, the God of the universe has made it His design to love us into submission. Not to force us. Once we truly comprehend the depth and fullness of His love manifested in Jesus we cannot help but bow the knee to His loving Lordship.
Nothing would be easier for an Omnipotent Omniscient God than scaring us into obedient submission by fear. For example, I have shared many times, He could simply send forth an occasional solar flare that wipes about 1/3 of us out at a time and then shout from the heavens…. “Think that is something? You ain’t seen nothing yet!” That would get our attention and scare us straight.
But no, He has manifested the fullness of His love instead, by sending His Son in the form of one like us, and having Him take on our penalty and death, and making resurrection life available to us in Him.
[Philippians 2:5-11 NASB95] 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Father loves us into obedience and bowing the knee and confessing Jesus is Lord. The Glory of the Father and the fullness of His love is revealed in the Son’s humble act of obedience out of love of the Father… and us. The joy set before Jesus to endure the cross was the desire to bring the Father many sons just like Him according to the Father’s plan and will. (Ephesians 1:18-20, Hebrews 2:9-10; 12:2)
Even so, may our joy be to abide in and manifest the love of the Father in Christ by our obedience to His word and what He asks and sets before us to do.
[John 15:10 NASB95] 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
[John 14:21-24 NASB95]
21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.