A Good Father
Fathers’ Day is this Sunday. For many of us, we can’t help but have mixed feelings as we think about our own fathers and the influence they’ve had on us for good or for ill. Maybe we wonder if we’ve honored our fathers as we ought to, as the Scriptures teach us to do. For those of us who are fathers or who aspire to be, we wonder what our legacy will be. Fathers’ Day is that day each year that fathers feel most appreciated, but also, the most vulnerable—hyperaware of our flaws. If we could sum up how people feel on that day, we might begin with, “It’s complicated.”
But one thing that’s uncomplicated is that the Bible describes God as a good Father. In fact, He’s a perfect Father to His people. To sample God’s Word on His fatherhood, James 1:17 tells us that “Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of Lights…” He’s a father who knows what we need. And to boot, everything good we have comes from Him. Psalm 103:13 says of Him, “As a father shows compassion to His children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear Him.” We all bear the scars of compassion withheld. We fear being left alone, forsaken. But God is tender towards those whom He loves, and He leaves the 99 to pursue one lost sheep, that He might bring us home on His shoulders rejoicing.
The author of Hebrews highlights his loving discipline of us, though at times it’s painful. Earthly fathers may punish out of frustration or hold back because they fear being misunderstood. But God hazards us misreading Him and administers the discipline that we so desperately need. And the Apostle Paul opens the letter to the Ephesians highlighting that God the Father “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” He not only provides our daily bread, but has provided His people with the Bread of Life, Jesus, whose sin-bearing death and resurrection has brought us back to God.
Some of us don’t know how to approach a father so good and so tender because we have no earthly frame of reference. It almost seems too good to be true. He seems to be too good to be true. But here’s a wonderful thing to ponder, whether your dad was absent, whether he was exemplary, and everything in between. Our earthly fathers were given to us for a short time. The role they play in our lives, compared to forever, is a flash. But the Eternal Father, the one who will outlast this sinful, broken shell of a world—He’s our Father forever. And so, no matter how we feel about Fathers’ Day, no matter how complicated, we can rejoice that our Heavenly Father has no flaws. Nor has He ever failed us. He never will.
