Which ‘father’ is the metaphor?

Some things we get backwards. I’ve heard people gripe about God not being fair, or God not caring about people. It seems as if their idea of ‘fair’ or their ‘caring’ is better than His. In putting Him down, the undergirding assumption seems to be that God should be like us because we see things more clearly. Since His ways don’t match ours, then He must be the failure.

That is backwards. God wants us to be like Him and He is perfect. Jesus said, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Our problem is that many people don’t know what He is actually like or how He measures perfection. They are evaluating Him with a limited perspective.

The past few days in my devotional guide, the author discusses God in terms of father and mother, a perfect parent. Today I’m reminded that when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He began by saying, “your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” then followed with, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

The author goes on to say, “It is inconceivable that a good father could forget or neglect or be unfair to his children. A savage or wicked father might, but a good father never! In calling our God by the blessed name of Father, we ought to know that if He is a father at all, He must be the very best of fathers, and His fatherhood must be the highest ideal of fatherhood we can conceive.”

It strikes me that this asks readers to compare God to the goodness of the very best earthly father, but isn’t that backwards? Shouldn’t we compare our fathering, our mothering, to Him? Isn’t He the standard? By thinking that way, would we not conclude that “all far short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) because even a good father at times makes mistakes in his parenting? But God never does, regardless of our opinions.

I know this devotional writer is trying to elevate her readers’ concept of God, yet no matter how much I try, I cannot form my thoughts of Him by looking at my parents. Even though they were great parents, by doing this I pull God down to human standards rather than see Him as high and lifted up.

The more God shows me what He is like, the more I see my own shortcomings. He is holy, a word that means “other than” and conveys the idea that He is totally different from me, and far above all my imagination. Of course I am made in His image, but sin warps not only that image but my perception of it. To see Him as He is, I must look at God’s revelations of Himself, not at another person who suffers from the same warping.

I don’t want to be misinterpreted, but have to say this: no matter how wonderful my parents were, even their love and care for me did not satisfy my longings for a perfect love, for total care. That hole in my heart could not be filled by them, only by my Creator. I see how His incredible ‘other-than-ness’ allows Himself to be compared with things I do understand, such as fire, mountains, rocks, fathers, mothers, even mother hens, and so on, but He makes it clear that none of these come close to a perfect description. I cannot look at a rock and say that rock is what God is like. I can only say God says He is something like that rock, but much more.

I don’t know if this makes sense to anyone else, but I noticed in these readings about my loving parents being like God that my thoughts went to my parents. However, as I consider God revealing Himself as Father means He is just a little like they were to me, I began thinking that God is incredibly above and beyond all the love and care I can imagine. If my parents, who were sinners too, could sacrificially give their time and energy to care for me, then the God who created them will do and does do so much more for me.

Am I hairsplitting? Maybe so, yet I do it because many people want God to be more like themselves (as if they are wiser, more loving, fairer, etc.) than He. They don’t know that God is so far above them that they cannot even see what He is like. They have it backwards.