This is My Father’s Heart

Just as a piece of literature should tell us something about its author, or a timepiece its architect, so too does creation - both seen and unseen - reveal its Creator. As David says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

Indeed, “all things were created through Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16). The Lord cannot but pour Himself into all His handiwork, for it is through Him and for Him that all things made find their substance, worth, and beauty. God has revealed Himself chiefly through the inspired words of Scripture, perfectly manifesting Himself in the Word made flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ His Son; but, God has also seen it fit that all of reality should in some way testify of His majesty and beauty.

However, is it not curious that the many glories of creation appeal to all of us differently? In the study of God’s world, a mathematician may revel in the precision and order of God’s universe, a zookeeper His sense of humor among the animals, and a judge His inscrutable moral perfection. For my part, as a writer, reader, and teacher, I tend to see God’s world and His fingerprints in it through stories - metaphors and echoes of far better things yet to come. Just as marriage here below is the shadow of a richer Heavenly reality, Christ’s relationship with His church (Ephesians 5:31-32), so can we trace our many experiences in this life back to some glorious revelation of our Lord and His eternal love for us.

When I was a teenager, I had horrid acne. I began my development from sapling to young man at a rather early age - though, this was not entirely without some benefits. For example, I was the third tallest boy at my school for a few years (only to lose any lead I had in high school), and I began growing facial hair well before my friends (a lead I still hold over some of them). But then came the acne. Between with my increased height, newfound facial hair, and blossoming acne, I must have looked like two entirely different people between the sixth and seventh grades.

In my pursuit of being acne free, I tried everything: Proactive, organic soap, apple cider vinegar, aloe vera - you name it, I tried it. Proactive seemed to work for a time; only, it was expensive and the moment I stopped treatment my acne came back worse than ever before. Nothing seemed to work. For anyone who has struggled with acne for any length of time, I need not further explain how discouraging this can be - physically, socially, and emotionally.

One evening, when I was about eleven or twelve, I was lying in bed after dinner. Before I fell asleep, however, a knock sounded on the door and my father walked into the room. My father most often knocked to announce that he was about to enter a room, not to ask permission if he could.

Upon entering, my father sat on the edge of my bed for a few minutes while he and I talked. I do not remember what we spoke about - it was so long ago - but I will never forget what happened next. While lying with my head on the pillow, my father got up and leaned in to kiss my forehead as he said goodnight - and that he loved me.

“No, my face,” I said softly as I recoiled from him, retreating further into my covers. I was ashamed; having had acne for some time now, I got used to feeling ugly in my own skin. I didn’t want him kissing me - it didn’t seem right.

“It’s okay, I don’t care,” my father said as he leaned in further and kissed my forehead, acne and all. He got up from the bed and made his way to the door, turning to speak once more before leaving the room: “Have a goodnight. I love you, Josh.”

Nineteen years was too short a time here below with my father, but I thank the Lord for each and every moment He blessed my family and I with him. I am thankful for his godly example; the ripples of righteousness that continue to pulsate in my life and through the lives of others because of his diligent, daily pursuit of Jesus Christ. I am indebted to my father who, though I was not yet a Christian at the time, displayed in that evening an image of the gospel and the heart of our Father in Heaven:

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).

While we were still sinners - enemies of God, fomenting all manner of blasphemies against Him and filled with far greater filth than mere acne - the Father sent His Son to die for us. Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father bestows upon us the right to become sons and daughters in His own family. As those who cling to Christ for salvation, robed in His righteousness, we call upon God not as a far-off, cosmic entity but as a beloved Father, the One to whom all fatherhood points:

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15).

In Christ, through His Spirit, God the Father stoops down to embrace, kiss, and assure us of His love. We did nothing to earn this salvation and inheritance in Him; it was a gift of His free grace, freely offered to all who repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When we try and make ourselves clean, when we shrink away from His gentle hand and His promise to forgive, we grieve Him whose very heart is that of a loving father. God is not first and foremost a brilliant mathematician, beautiful artist, or even Creator, but a Father. In order to see God and His world properly, we must view reality through this crucial, beautiful lens. In his book Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves makes these important points about the Father’s heart:

“Since God is, before all things, a Father, and not primarily Creator or Ruler, all His ways are beautifully fatherly. It is not that this God “does” being Father as a day job, only to kick back in the evenings as plain old “God.” It is not that He has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top. He is Father. All the way down. Thus all that He does He does as a Father. That is who He is... He creates as a Father and He rules as a Father; and that means the way He rules over creation is most unlike the way any other God would rule over creation.”

God the Father is not aloof in our salvation. The Father chose us in the depths of eternity, having predestined us to life eternal through faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, saving and sealing us with His Holy Spirit until the day in which Christ returns. When your flesh fails you, when the winds and waves of this world assail you, when the enemy accuses you, look to Him who is above all a Father, who sent His only Son to die for your sins while you were still His enemy. He knows everything about you, indeed the very worst there is to know about you, and yet it is your Heavenly Father who loves you to the uttermost. This is our Father’s heart.

“This is my Father’s world:

The birds their carols raise,

The morning light, the lily white,

Declare their Maker’s praise.

This is my Father’s world:

He shines in all that’s fair;

In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,

He speaks to me everywhere.”

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Photo by Emiliano Bar, Unsplash