So I was thinking of a blog to write or just something to write about. I am not sure why I felt the need to write. Normally if I don't have a topic I just wait till I do or wait until I feel like I do and just ramble. But anyway I got to thinking about a odd topic. I am not sure if it is only odd to me but maybe you find it odd as well. It is something that I have thought about before but never given any serious thought. Well by now you are probably wondering what this topic is. Well here it is: with all the things that pull away children from their fathers in this world, why would God tell us or call himself a father? It just seems funny to me.
I first started thinking about this when I was reading Blue Like Jazz (great book. read it now!) and Donald Miller said it. This is what he says: "My father left home when I was young, so when I was introduced to the concept of God as a father I imagined him as a stiff, oily man who wanted to move into our house and share a bed with my mother. I can only remember this as a frightful and threatening idea. We were a poor family who attended a wealthy church, so I imagined God as a man who had a lot f money and drove a big car. At church they told us we were children of God, but I knew God's family was better than mine, the He had a daughter that was a cheerleader and a son who played football. I was born with a small bladder so I wet the bed till I was ten and later developed a crush on the homecoming queen who was kind to me in a political sort of way, which is something she probably learned from her father, who was the president of a bank. And so from the beginning, the chasm that separated me from God was a deep as wealth and as wide as fashion. ...Today I wonder why it is God refers to himself as 'Father' at all. This, to me, in the light of earthly representation or the role seems a marketing mistake."
I think that it is a marketing mistake. I have...well...not the best relationship with my father. We talk and hang out but it is not really a relationship that goes beyond surface level. My parents divorced when I was three and my dad has been in my life more at some times and less at others. But he has never left completely. Now that I am getting older it is hard to have a relationship with him because he still thinks that I am five. He knows that I am not but he still treats me like it. I find it annoying. I can't stand it really. So thinking of God as my dad has been hard to say the least. I find it hard to do it sometimes because I do, now, think of Him as my father and the one who will always be there for me no matter what, just like a father should. But I still seem to find a hesitation in my heart to give in to that completely. I think that is one of the things that I am supposed to be working on this summer. Maybe that is why I have been pulled away from everything so that I can realize that God is right there. Always will be. No matter what. But getting away from my daddy issues, there are so many other people that go through not being able to be truly close to God because they have bad relationships with their fathers.
I am really not sure where I am going with this. I really think that I am just asking the question.
Why do you think that God calls Himself a father in a fatherless world? Is it a marketing mistake?
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