God as Father
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...”
I’m currently reading a book (in point of fact, I’m currently reading three books - yay, Kindle! - but I digress) called The Prayer Experiment. I’ve read a number of books on prayer in the last couple of years, largely driven by my own frustration with my own practice of prayer. I don’t know about you, but my prayer life sometimes seems stilted and rote. It feels like I’m always praying for the same old things day after day. It was a similar frustration with my devotional life that led me to the book The Divine Mentor a few years ago, and the SOAPing method of engaging Scripture I learned there has reinvigorated my Bible reading discipline more than anything ever. I am very happy with the way the Lord communicates with me through His Word, but the way I communicate with Him in prayer...well, not so much. I have hoped in beginning each of those books for a similar breakthrough in terms of prayer, but so far, I’ve come up short. A number of books, by great authors, all valuable in their way, but none really hitting the target of what I need.
The jury is still out on The Prayer Experiment. The author, Matt Smallbone, confesses in the introduction to much of the same frustration I’ve been feeling. His breakthrough came from using the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern for prayer; hardly a new concept, but one that clearly deserves a thorough exploration. I’m only about 1/3 into the book, but I’m finding some of his insights valuable.
Thus far, I’m still in the realm of the verses above. Here are some insights from those verses so far.
I. GOD IS OUR FATHER: We are so used to addressing God as Father that we fail to grasp how radical it was for Jesus to speak of God as His Father and ours. No one had ever taught us to view God through that lens before. Perhaps no one other than the eternal Son could have. For many people, viewing God as Father is problematic. I will never forget the day I was teaching a group of mostly ninth graders, and I was waxing eloquent on the truth of God as our Father when one of the young ladies in the class cried out in a mixture of disgust and despair, “WHY does He HAVE to be our FATHER!?!” and she spat out the word “Father” as if it was the most distasteful word she had ever spoken. Her relationship with her earthly father was a troubled one, and she viewed God as Father through the lens of that troubled relationship. Her parents had divorced before she ever remembered them being together. Her father had lots of time for his new wife and children, but little if any for her. To her, the word “father” conjured up images of being abandoned, forgotten, unloved, and replaced. I could (and did) tell her that God is everything that she wished her earthly father would be, and more. But I suspect that her emotional father-wound was far more powerful than that intellectual truth could overcome. I believe that’s why God has put so much emphasis on fathers as spiritual leaders in the home. Someday, every child who hears about the fatherhood of God will view Him through the lens of their earthly fathers, for better or worse. Some of us have good fathers. Others had bad fathers. Some may have even had monster fathers. None of us had perfect fathers. But when we come to Christ, we are adopted by the best Father, who always knows and only does what’s best in every situation.
II. GOD IS CLOSE: I remember a praise chorus from many years ago that echoed a sentiment expressed by the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, that says, “He is nearer to me than my hands and my feet; He is closer to me than my breath.” When we read “Our Father in heaven” we think of Him as far, far away, way up yonder, but the word for “heaven” here refers to all three heavens. Remember when Paul was caught up to the third heaven? That’s the place we think of when we hear the word heavens, but the Hebrews in particular thought of creation in terms of three heavens. The first heaven is what we would call the atmosphere, the second what we would call outer space, and the third being the throne room of God and the ultimate destination of the saved. It would not be a mistranslation to translate it, “Our Father in the heavens.” Is He on the throne of the universe? Obviously. But an omnipresent God is also right here with us, as close as the air on our skin. Years ago, Bette Midler recorded a song called “From a Distance.” The first time I heard it on the radio, my spirit soared as she sang, “God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us...” But then came the next line of the lyric, “...from a distance,” and my spirit crashed. NO! That is deism, the belief that God as the cosmic clockmaker created and wound up the universe, but doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it anymore; He’s just observing from a distance, waiting for it to run down. No, my friend, when you hurt, He’s not just watching from far away, He’s right there hurting with you. When you weep, He’s there. When you rejoice, He’s there. He is close. Very close. Nearer than your hands and feet, and closer than your next breath.
III. GOD IS HOLY: “Hallowed be Thy Name.” “Hallowed” is another word for “Holy,” and holy speaks of being set apart, special, not common. God’s closeness must never lead us into a flippant familiarity with Him. He is close. He is Father. But we must never lose sight that He is the Sovereign Lord of the Universe. Imagine an earthly monarch and his child, say, King Charles and Prince William. As far as we know, Prince William and his father are close (Prince Harry is another story), but despite the closeness, he would never dream of bouncing into the throne room and saying, “Hey, Charlie, what’s shaking?” Not only would that be disrespectful of Charles as his father, it would also be disrespectful of him as the king. The way that some people speak of God - even some people who name His name - would be disrespectful to an earthly king or an earthly father. People use the names of God and Jesus as swear words. The one that absolutely frosts my cookies is when people refer to God as the “old man upstairs.” That phrase has as many errors as words. He is not old; He is eternal. He is not a man, He is God. And He is not upstairs as if by our own efforts we could ascend to His status. Let us never forget in prayer who it is we’re talking to.
IV. WE ARE TO SEEK GOD’S WILL: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As our Father, our example of holiness and our Sovereign King, we are to seek in all things to conform our will to His will. How is His will done in heaven? Perfectly. Quickly. Without hesitation. Without argumentation. On earth, not so much, even among His children and subjects. Could it be that prayer is far more about conforming our wills to His will than about trying to conform His will to ours? I’ll answer that question. Absolutely! As much as is humanly possible, we are to bring our lives under His Kingdom authority (“Seek first the Kingdom of God...”), and we are to use whatever influence we have over whatever earthly entities to bring them as much as possible under His Kingdom authority as well.
Oh, there’s more, so much more, to the Lord’s model prayer. But I’m trying to slow down a bit, and not rush past what we’ve seen here to the “give me” sections of it. A good suggestion for us all.
I hope to see you this Sunday as we continue our dissection of the praise song “Days of Elijah.” We’ll be finishing up our look at “Declaring the Word of the Lord” this Sunday, and then next Sunday, we’ll begin looking at “These Are The Days of Your Servant Moses.”
Numbers 6:24-26,
Bro. Donnie
P.S. I asked for prayer this past Sunday for our Connor, who is in Nashville for medical issues. It had taken six months for him to get an appointment with the only pediatric specialist in Tennessee who deals with his particular issues, and there were two tests he needed for the doctor to diagnose and treat him. With the doctor about to go out on maternity leave, he needed those tests this week, but they were told that the earliest they could be scheduled was February. Elizabeth was told again first thing this morning that it was an impossibility, but as I am writing this on Monday at 3:00, THE FATHER HAS PROVIDED AGAIN! Connor will be having one test tomorrow and the other on Wednesday! Thank you for your prayers!