God very purposely calls Himself our Heavenly Father. He perfectly guides, matures, and disciplines us as a loving father should. However, far too many people imagine God is distant or abusive. Never because of how God has treated them, but because of the image created by their own distant or abusive fathers. It’s sometimes difficult to imagine, but our imperfect fathers can give us such a sweet view of our majestic Heavenly Father.
A father’s unique wounds
Even a “Father of the Year” is no less a sinner in desperate need of Christ. Our need to rely on Christ for wisdom and humility is seen in the unique ways that a father can leave lasting wounds on his children. It’s terrifying to realize that our selfishness, pride, anger, and impossible demands can echo down through generations.
For some, those wounds have left a deep scar. A childhood of abuse or neglect becomes normal if someone doesn’t know anything different. If our fathers are meant to teach us about the world and how we are to live in it, what sort of place must the world be if we lack a father’s love or live in absolute terror of his anger or lusts?
This heartbreaking reality, of a world where the man meant to protect you becomes your greatest source of pain, molds us. It determines how we view ourselves. We’re afraid of becoming parents and inflicting that pain on another. And inevitably, we can even view God as a more powerful version of our own fathers.
God isn’t a distant father
If our father was distant or absent, we can easily feel the burden of living a Christian life without God. We’ve never seen the model of having someone we can rely on when we are weak, uncertain, or just in need of a father’s love. Without growing up and experiencing the strength and solidity of a caring father, it can be nearly impossible to understand that aspect of God.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:8)
Yet our God is not only available, but He wants His children to enjoy the depths of His love. He is always with us, caring for us and making sure we go the way He knows is best. God never leaves us to figure things out. He doesn’t look at us while we’re hurting and leave us to figure it out. He doesn’t abandon us in our critical moments. Instead, our Father is intimately close and invested in His children.
And God’s nearness isn’t dependent on us. God’s love for us is absolute and unwavering. He doesn’t base His love by how we measure up. God chooses to love us, and there’s nothing that can stop Him from doing so. No matter how broken we may feel, or how unworthy we may be, God is always there for His children.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)
God isn’t an abusive father
Abuse takes many forms, and all have their own ways of warping a child’s view of the world. Whether emotional, physical, or sexual, a father’s selfishness can ultimately violate a child’s sense of purpose and value. A child knows their father is meant to love them, yet they grow up learning that love is painful and filled with shame. They are little more than their father’s target, a small and helpless person whose sole purpose is to silently accept a violation of their innate human value. When confronted with the God of the Bible, how surprising is it that He is a being of wrath and judgment, ready to attack them for His own selfish pleasure?
My child, do not despise discipline from the Lord, and do not loathe his rebuke. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights. (Proverbs 3:11-12)
This passage seems like an unlikely way to prove God isn’t a sovereign version of our abusive fathers. Yet what this reveals about fatherly love is illuminating and opens us up to understand God as a father even more. It can be so tempting to paint God as a marshmallow, sitting around and waiting to fulfill His children’s every wish. We want God to be the direct opposite of the man who spent our childhood abusing us. As a result, we mistakingly think that a good father is one who only exists to make his children happy.
Yet it’s out of love that God disciplines His wayward, destruction-loving children. The God who isn’t distant is the same God who wants the best for us. He doesn’t want what we think is best, but what He knows we need to be more like Christ. And just like a loving parent doesn’t stand idly by and gently ask their toddler not to pull down the pot of boiling water, God is a good father who will chastise those He loves.
Unlike a father with a short temper, God isn’t standing on a cloud and waiting to strike us down as soon as we make a mistake. He isn’t a ticking time bomb, making us fearful of what little thing will finally set Him off today. God mourns as we pursue sin and lovingly pulls us away from destruction.
God’s actions aren’t out of petty revenge, but loving patience. Remember that when Christ took our sins upon Himself, He replaced gave us His righteousness. God has no wrath for us because it was paid for at the cross. When we sin, as we all will, God is quick to forgive and lovingly put us back on the path He knows we need to be on. God isn’t abusive and loves us enough to pull us from danger.
As far as the eastern horizon is from the west, so he removes the guilt of our rebellious actions from us. (Psalm 103:12)
God is our perfect example
There is a great fear that children of distant or abusive fathers will continue the pattern. Those who have grown up that way may even feel shackled to their father’s actions, feeling like they can never know what a good father should look like. Men and women grow up with a distorted view of what a “good man” looks like, often finding their own children living through the same abuse and neglect that has haunted them. Yet even in a harrowing childhood, we can all find a good father.
God’s constant tenderness, endless compassion, enduring patience, and sacrificial love are the traits of a good father. Those with no idea what a father should be are never left to figure things out alone. God has revealed Himself as a father all throughout the Bible. He didn’t choose that title accidentally – He is the perfect example of how a father loves His children, and those with no earthly father they’d like to emulate can’t go wrong by looking at how God loves us.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. 1For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:14-15)
Forgive what we’ll never forget
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)
Through Christ, God has forgiven us of everything. Every hateful thought, every selfish action was brutally paid for by God’s own son. When we understand the great cost God paid in forgiving us, God enables something truly incredible: we can genuinely forgive our own fathers and move on from our past.
We have no need to be trapped by the actions of sinful men. Christ has set us free from everything, including the horrors of our childhood. It’s easy to become bitter and make our childhood a part of who we are. Yet when God freed us from the bondage of sin, He also freed us from the shackles of our past.
The scars of a father may never fully go away, but they no longer have to define us. Through Christ, we can finally enjoy a relationship with a father who will never leave us, never treat us with cruelty, and will love us unconditionally. If we didn’t get a taste of that kind of father during childhood, we can now experience it forever.
Be strong and courageous! Do not fear or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He will not fail you or abandon you! (Deuteronomy 31:6)
