Our Good Father

 

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Matthew‬ ‭7‬:‭11‬ ‭

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." James‬ ‭1‬:‭17‬

In an ideal scenario, our earthly fathers would reflect God's character - His love, grace, mercy, and steadfastness - to us in such a way that our initial understanding of how God loves us comes through the examples of our earthly fathers. Sadly, we live in a sin-filled world where not everyone grows up in an ideal scenario. Maybe you come from a broken home, where you learned at a young age that your father did not always keep his promises. Perhaps your father left you, intentionally or unintentionally, leaving you to feel utterly alone or completely abandoned. Some of you might have had fathers who harmed  you, neglected you, or otherwise fell way beyond short of a godly example of what a father should be. How can we understand the great and perfect love of our Father in Heaven if we don't experience godly love from our earthly fathers? 

We start by looking for the good. As James tells us in his epistle, all good comes from the Father. No matter how small, there is always good that God has worked, and is working in our lives. God may use unexpected vessels to show us His love, His mercy, His grace, and His goodness. But friends He will show us! He will create examples of His goodness in our lives. 

I want to be careful about how I say what I am about to share with you. I don't want to be disrespectful, nor do I mean to dishonor anyone...however, I want you to know that I understand what it is like to grow up in a broken home. I am not speaking to you solely because I saw a situation from the outside. I lived the hurt that comes from a sin-broken world. I later witnessed it in my children's lives as my own broken marriage to their earthly father crumbled into nothingness. 

What I didn't see at the time was that, where I had a lack of a present and consistent example of God's love from my earthly father, God placed another man in that role. From the moment my parents separated until well after high school graduation, I had a present, consistent, loving example in my grandfather. Not only in the love, grace, and mercy that he showed my single mom, but also in the love, grace, mercy, and guidance that he showed my siblings and me. 

God gave my own children a strong, loving man to show them love, grace, mercy, and goodness, my now husband. He stepped in with strength of character, depth of heart, excess of grace and an abundance of kindness. He not only showed them godly love for children, but he also showed them how a loving, loyal, devoted, and God-centered marriage should be. 

I cannot proclaim that God always provides a man to step in to show fatherly love to those who need it most. There may be someone reading this right now who has no such father figure in their life. If that is you, I am so sorry for your lack. I don't have specific scripture that says 'God will give us a father figure to show us a reflection of His love.' (Side note: I will say that Esther had a great man, Mordecai, step up for her when she was an orphan without an earthly father to protect or guide her. If I dove deeply, I would likely be able to find additional examples of God's love being reflected to His children by more than just their earthly fathers.) I will say that God's goodness and love in our lives does not depend upon the earthly example of anyone...well, no one except of course His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. 

Do you know what is very persistently mentioned in the Bible? The fact that God is always with us. He never leaves us. The Bible shows us God's omnipresence in our lives. That's a really powerful word, I understand it to mean that He is always with us. He is present - everywhere, anywhere, wherever we go, and with absolutely every single one of His children. A quick online search tells me there are at least one hundred verses in which the Bible reminds us that God will never leave us. Talk about a good Father! We can depend upon Him not only because He is omnipresent, but also because He is a Father who keeps each and every single one of His promises. 

As we grow - in age, in wisdom, in knowledge, in faith - we come to see that whether we had a father who was an amazing reflection of God's love, or not, we would all find flaws in our earthly fathers that our heavenly Father does not have. We are children of the One True God. He is the Only perfect love we will ever know. Maturity in faith comes from seeking our Father in Heaven, in dedicated prayer as well as focused time spent in His Word. At a certain point in our faith walk we come to realize that our Father in Heaven is always good. The day we stop looking for earthly examples of His goodness is the day we begin to see His goodness was always there. We will also see His goodness is present in unexpected, beautiful ways. 

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our God is good even when the sin-broken world is not. Our Father in Heaven works good out of what the enemy means for evil in our lives. There is nothing good that doesn't come from God. The next time you feel the urge to label something as good, don't forget to acknowledge the One from whom the goodness originated. Yes, we all have a Good Father.