Fatherhood of God

M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., writes in “Invitation to a Journey”:

I once heard a woman tell of her struggle with this reality. Her mother was a prostitute, and she was the accidental byproduct of her mother's occupation. Her life's pilgrimage had brought her to faith in Christ, blessed her with a deeply Christian husband and beautiful children, and given her a life of love and stability. But she was obsessed with the need to find out who her father was. This obsession was affecting her marriage, her family, and her life.

She told how one day she was standing at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes, with tears of anguish and frustration running down her face into the dishwater. In her agony, she cried out, "Oh, God, who is my father?" Then, she said, she heard a voice saying to her, "I am your father."

The voice was so real she turned to see who had come into the kitchen, but there was no one there. Again, the voice came, "I am your father, and I have always been your father."

In that moment she knew a profound scriptural reality. She came to know that deeper than the "accident" of her conception was the eternal purpose of a loving God, who had spoken her forth into being before the foundation of the world.

Former Oregon Ducks star Greg Bell remembers a pivotal moment that changed his relationship with his daughter Sofia.

Greg had just finished watching Sofia, then eleven, cross the finish line at a track meet. When he went over to congratulate her on her finish, she had a question for him. She asked, “Dad, why are you and everyone yelling at me while I’m running?” Greg laughed. “Sweetie, we’re just trying to help you run faster.” Sofia looked around and tersely replied: “What do you think I’m trying to do?”

Sofia is now a sophomore at the University of Oregon, and a star ball player in her own right. She won a national championship in a Nike invitational tournament with her AAU team, and was named a McDonalds All-American in 2023. And she credits both of her parents for their encouragement, especially her dad.

Sofia said of her dad, “He definitely gave me a lot of guidance and still does. He is pretty consistent with his texts and his little stuff.”

Reflecting on how he changed his own parenting style, Greg said, “(For) most kids, I think, the worst part of sports is the ride home. We didn’t want sports to be a negative for her. She’s already going to be self-critical.”

Greg is convinced that Sofia chose the same path he did, playing the same sport at the same school, because he gave her the space to express her own personality. By allowing her this freedom, he believes she was able to find her own way and make her own decisions. He says parents can help their kids the best when they’re not lurking or overbearing with parental interference. Greg told a reporter:

So much of it is just having a strong relationship with her. What’s the relationship going to look like when the ball stops bouncing? If I’m a jerk to her while we’re in the gym, what’s that going to look like in five years?... I shot all the baskets I’m going to shoot… It’s her legacy. Not mine.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Like a loving parent guiding a teen into adulthood or a coach guiding a star player into a successful athletic campaign, God walks with us every day and gives us what we need to become the people we were created to be.

"I feel like a monster," Gabriel Marshall said to his dad. Eight-year-old Gabriel had recently undergone surgery to remove a tumor from his brain, and he now bore a conspicuous scar on the side of his head. His dad, Josh, had an idea: he got a tattoo on the side of his head that was in the exact shape of Gabriel's scar. He told Gabriel, "If people want to stare at you, then they can stare at both of us."

A picture of the two sporting their scars eventually won first place in a Father's Day photo competition run by St. Baldrick's Foundation, "an organization dedicated to fighting childhood cancer."

Possible Preaching Angle:

In some ways, their story might remind us of another story: about an empathetic Father, a wounded Son, and scars that were chosen because of love.

In his autobiographical novel, Everything Sad is Untrue, Daniel Nayeri describes fleeing from Iran as a boy to escape persecution for his Christian faith. At one point, he asks the reader a question:

Would you rather have a God who listens or a god who speaks? Be careful of the answer … There are gods all over the world who just want you to express yourself. At their worst, the people who want a god who listens are self-centered. They just want to live in the land of “do as you please.” And the ones who want a god who speaks are cruel. They just want law and justice to crush everything …. Love is empty without justice. Justice is cruel without love. Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious the answer is both. God should be both.

Time and again, Jesus proves to be a God who listens. People seek him out by the thousands—but he never refuses a conversation. The only time Jesus ever silences anyone, saying, quite literally, “Be quiet!” it’s a demon (Luke 4:35). Other than that, he’s willing to give anyone the time of day. Blind Bartimaeus shouts to him on a crowded road. While others scold him to keep quiet, Jesus beckons him over and gives Bartimaeus the floor. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asks …. Whatever the blind man had to say, Jesus was all ears.

He’s not just a sounding board, though. Jesus has something to say. Words are the very tools Jesus uses to bring forth his plans …. When his friend is dead and lying in his tomb and Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out!” and the dead man comes out …. In other words, when Jesus speaks things happen.

Jesus is a God who listens and a God who speaks, a God who simply enjoys talking with people. He doesn’t mind being inconvenienced. He’s willing to seek out those who differ with him …. because he is a God who knows, a God to whom all hearts are open and no secrets hid.

The fact that Jesus is the kind of God who wants to be in a personal relationship with us is remarkable compared to the false gods who either speak from on high or listen to us with blank stares .… The Christian faith reveals that we have more than just words, but the Word made flesh.

Anna LeBaron grew up in a violent, polygamist cult—a radical off-shoot of the modern-day Mormon church. The leader was her father, Ervil LaBaron, and he demanded total allegiance. He commanded followers to carry out mob-style hits on those who opposed him or fled his cult. Media outlets nicknamed him “the Mormon [Charles] Manson” for the atrocities he committed, and authorities in multiple states (and Mexico) issued arrest warrants for him.

Anna and her family moved often, living in constant fear of getting caught. The FBI and Mexican police would raid their home, looking for her father and the others who had carried out his orders. Anna writes:

We experienced poverty of mind, spirit, and body. One man cannot support 13 wives and over 50 children. Everyone, even young children, worked long hours in grueling conditions to ensure we didn’t starve. Even so, we regularly scavenged—or stole—to meet basic food and clothing needs. We were never allowed to make friends with anyone outside the cult. Eventually my father was taken into custody by the FBI agents, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in a Utah prison.

Even though I grew up in a religious group that claimed to believe the Bible, I had no idea who Jesus was. When anyone in our tight-knit community spoke the name of Jesus or mentioned Christianity, they did so with contempt and derision. But God had his eye on me even then.

My older brother Ed, who lived in Houston, wanted a better life for us. After my father’s imprisonment he showed up in Denver with a U-Haul truck. After about a year the phone rang and the caller reported that my father had been found dead in his prison cell. I was shocked, but I found it difficult to mourn as a normal child would.

After hearing the news, her mother decided to move back to Denver and the chaos of the cult. Anna called Lillian, an older sister who had married and had begun distancing herself from the cult. She told her, “Start walking.” Anna walked out of the house with just the clothes on her back. Her sister hid Anna in a hotel for three days while her mother looked for her that night. When she couldn’t find her, she drove her siblings back to Denver.

I (Anna) moved in with Lillian, her husband, Mark, and their six children. They enrolled me in a Christian school. Several students there showed me love and acceptance quite different from anything I’d ever experienced. I could tell they had something inside them that I was missing and desperately needed. I learned about the Good News of God’s love for me. I learned how Jesus, God’s Son, was sent to earth to die on the cross for my sin. I learned that Jesus lived, was crucified, and was raised from the dead.

My sister allowed me to go on a retreat with the church youth group. The youth pastor gave me the opportunity to ask Jesus to come into my life and change me. That night, God took the broken heart of a 13-year-old girl in his hands, and since then he has been gradually restoring the wholeness that my chaotic childhood smashed to pieces.

My faith has carried me through the dark valleys and has helped me persevere through intense fear, tragedy, and multiple murders of people I love. As a child, I knew myself only as the polygamist’s daughter. But when I came to truly know God as my father, he shattered the evil grip my earthly father had on my life. I began to find my identity as a daughter of God and learned to experience true freedom in and through Jesus Christ alone.

Tori Petersen grew up in the foster care system where she absorbed a message that she was worthless. Although the rules were strict, she was allowed to go to church which gave some relief from a sterile group-home environment. She writes:

The pastor’s messages about forgiveness gave me the first stirrings of hope I could remember. I even asked Jesus into my heart, though I didn’t understand what that entailed. I only went up to the altar because I thought that I’d find relief from the pain of foster care and the continual sense of feeling unwanted.

As she moved through a succession of foster homes, her heart grew increasingly callous toward God and other people. Her peers would poke fun at her, saying she had “daddy issues.” At the time, Tori “believed having a father would solve lots of my problems. Perhaps someone would have been there to love me. If God was so good, I couldn’t help wondering, then why hadn’t he granted me a father?”

During many lunch periods, she enjoyed secluding herself in the English teacher’s classroom. For one of her art classes, she received permission to paint a mural on his wall. While she painted, they talked. He never shied away from a good debate or hard questions.

Tori said, “One day he asked if I believed in God. I replied that I didn’t. From my perspective, it seemed like people claimed belief in God due to social consensus more than any genuine faith.” I asked, “If most people in society didn’t believe in God, would people still believe in God?”

He paused for a long time, and then responded, “I don’t know.” She appreciated his candor, which was rare among the Christians she had known. Instead of telling her what (and how) to believe, he admitted he didn’t have all the answers.

My teacher’s honest admission of uncertainty encouraged me to start asking more questions, because deep in my heart I was searching for the Father I’d always yearned for. My heart was so drawn to the character of Jesus that I posted a YouTube video asking people to forgive me for being a mean and angry person.

Around the same time, a youth leader she’d barely seen since junior high reentered her life. She began asking her and her foster mom questions about God, which they answered patiently and kindly. Tori said, “The one question I couldn’t shake revolved around innocent children: If God is so good, then why do they suffer? All they could answer was, ‘I don’t know.’”

I didn’t know either. But I did know that when I looked at Scripture, I saw a God who didn’t shy away from pain but embraced it so that others would know love. And when I looked at the lives of those who most reminded me of Jesus, I could see how they had sacrificed on my behalf. I didn’t want to waste their suffering, or my own, but I wanted to receive it all as a gift—as a call to love others as they had loved me.

My salvation did not happen in a single grand moment, but through small miracles that gradually chipped away at the scales of skepticism. I saw God more clearly the more time I spent around people who pursued godliness, who told me who I was in Christ despite what I’d done and what had been done to me.

In the end, the father I’d always wanted turned out to be the Father who was always there, the Father who revealed himself to me in his own perfect timing.

Almost five years to the day after he returned home the first time, the prodigal son emptied his bank account, packed a few changes of clothes, and snuck off for the faraway country. Again.

The first year back he was just glad to be home.

The second year was toughest; he still couldn’t get (rid of) … the shame that chewed away at his soul.

The third year, things leveled out a little. He started feeling more at home, back in synch with his former life.

The fourth year, certain things began to irk him. His old itches longed to be scratched.

And the fifth year, it happened. All the former allurements came knocking, rapping their knuckles on his heart’s front door.

And so the prodigal relapsed. Re-sinned. Re-destroyed his life.

You know him—or her. Maybe it’s your best friend. Maybe it's your child. Or maybe it’s you. That thing you swore you’d never do again, you did it last night. You left the straight and narrow. Prodigals have a way of finding themselves right back in the pigsty.

In that moment … heaven and hell contend within you. Hell shouts, “Now you’ve gone and done it. You stupid piece of garbage. You’re a lost, lonely, hopeless cause. You’re a pig. And that’s all you’ll ever be.”

But there is another voice. It’s the voice of heaven, the familiar lilt of a Dad’s voice, echoing down the long hallways of hope … down to the deepest, darkest caverns of your pain. He doesn’t accuse. He doesn’t berate. He only mouths two simple words … of heaven’s redemptive love: “Come Home.”

The second time, the third time, the thousandth time, he will sprint … to meet you down the street, throw his arms around you, kiss you, and command that the fattened calf be barbecued. The Father is standing on the porch, his hand shading the sun from his eyes, scanning the horizon for the familiar image of the one who will ever remain, his precious, beloved child. “Come home.”

Jacob Smith, is a 15-year-old legally blind freeride skier. Jacob has extreme tunnel vision--and no depth perception on top of that. What he does see is blurry. His visual acuity is rated 20/800, four times the level of legal blindness. Think of the big E on the eye chart. He would need it to be blown up four times in order to see it from 20 feet away.

So how does Jacob ski like this? His family keeps him on course. On competition days, Jacob’s little brother, Preston, patiently helps him hike to the top of the venue. It's so high, the lifts won't take you there. Then his father, Nathan, helps him get down. Jacob has a two-way radio turned up high in his pocket. His dad is on the other end at the base, somehow, calmly, guiding him down.

His father, Nathan Smith, said:

It's on me to make sure I don't let him down. I have to guide him through narrower chutes or not go off a cliff. Jacob is not reckless. He knows his limitations. I think he has the ability to ski anything on the mountain, but he's not gonna go try to do it by himself. Like, he wants to be with somebody who he trusts. He won't ski with people he doesn't trust.

When Jacob was asked how much he trusted his father, he replied, “I mean, enough to turn right when he tells me to.”

Author and YouTube video producer Kim Tate shares her story of finding an intimate relationship with her Abba Father in heaven.

It’s one of my most vivid memories as a girl: sitting on the edge of my bed, face angled toward the window, eyes peeled for my daddy. My heart would race as a new set of headlights approached—maybe that’s him—before sinking as the car passed into the distance. Still, I’d hold on to hope. From the time my parents divorced—I was four—I looked forward to these planned outings with my dad.

Where is he? Did he forget about me? Daddy was always out and about. All I could do was wait, even as daylight turned to dusk and dusk to night. Tears would gather as I realized he wasn’t coming. Again. More than once I thought, I must not really matter. He must not really love me. I was longing for a relationship with my father.

Kim lost her virginity before she turned 16. This brought feelings of shame, because her mother had always preached abstinence until marriage. After that summer, she decided to abstain, but without God she was a slave to sin. So, during college and law school she gave in to living life on her own terms.

During her second year at law school, she fell in love with a fellow student named Bill. After graduating, they moved to Madison to start their careers. But Kim was miserable, so she had a strange idea, “I could pray and maybe God would miraculously intervene to get us out of Madison.”

As I prayed, I started thinking, If I want God to do something for me, I should probably do something for him. Like go to church. Before long I felt convicted about our “living in sin.” So, Bill and I decided to have a private wedding ceremony on Valentine’s Day.

About one year later, Bill couldn’t wait to tell me he’d visited a new church that morning. The following Sunday, we visited together. By the end of service, I was in tears. For the first time, I heard the true gospel preached, and it rocked me. Finally, I understood why Jesus died on that cross. Finally, I saw myself as God saw me—a sinner in need of redemption. I asked God to forgive me, and I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. For all my prayers that God would save me from Madison, his plan, all along, had been to save me in Madison.

Looking back now, from a distance of 25 years, I remember how studying the Book of Deuteronomy was a pivotal part of my early Christian walk. One word, in particular, jumped off the page. Deuteronomy 10:20 and 13:4 mention “holding fast”—or clinging, as some translations have it—to God. It meant relationship—close relationship. Yet it was hard to fathom. The God of the universe would let me cling to him?

What an unsurpassable gift for that little girl staring out of the window, waiting for her dad, and wondering if she really mattered. My Abba Father was letting me know that I could enjoy an intimate relationship with him forever.

Eric Carle, the beloved children’s author and illustrator whose classics The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? gave millions of kids some of their earliest and most cherished reading memories. His books introduced universal themes in simple words and bright colors. Carle wrote and-or illustrated more than 75 books.

When Carle died in May 2021, an obituary in The Wall Street Journal recalled that he once said, “I believe that children are naturally creative and eager to learn. I want to show them that learning is really both fascinating and fun.”

Carle credited his own father as the main source of encouraging his creativity. “When I was a small child,” he told a reporter in 1994, “as far back as I can remember, he would take me by the hand. And we would go out in nature. And he would show me worms and bugs and bees and ants and explain their lives to me. It was a very loving relationship.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

Carle’s quote shows the power of a loving father to teach his children, but it also shows how Jesus disciples us—he takes us by the hand, forming a loving relationship with us, and shows us what really matters.

Rob Kenney’s YouTube channel, “Dad, how do I?” went viral last year. Kenney released his first video shortly after the coronavirus pandemic was declared. He wanted to provide practical advice (“How to fix most running toilets”) and emotional support (“I am proud of you!”). But in a time defined by isolation and loneliness, his messages resonated with far more than the 30 or 40 subscribers he expected. Now he surpassed 3.4 million subscribers and 15 million views.

When “Good Morning America” referred to the 57-year-old as the “Internet’s Dad,” followers flooded him with stories about their parents, broken relationships, and traumatic experiences. Kenney said, “It breaks my heart that so many people need my channel.”

The seeds for his videos were planted in Kenney’s tumultuous childhood. When his parents divorced, his dad gained custody. His mom was legally declared unfit to parent as she turned to alcohol. Soon after, Kenney’s dad met another woman. On the weekend, he would stock up his kids with groceries and then leave them as he drove an hour away. After a year, he gathered his children to deliver a devastating message: “I’m done raising kids.”

Kenney, who was 14 at the time, moved in with his 23-year-old newlywed brother in a 280-square-foot trailer. His teenage experience was full of anger, sorrow, and confusion as he vowed to never cause his own children such pain. That pledge broadened when he realized he wasn’t the only kid without a dad around, so he doubled-down and decided he’d also help anyone else who needed a father figure.

Once Kenney reached his early 50s, feeling like he had accomplished his goal of raising two good adults. He thought he had plenty more life to live, zeroing in on the second part of his vow: to help others. His daughter says “I genuinely think he was put on Earth to be a dad.”

Over the past year, Kenney has leaned on his faith to prevent himself from feeling too overwhelmed. His early-morning habit of reading the Bible provides him with calmness and clarity. Last Father’s Day, his followers mailed him scores of cards (some handmade, many heartfelt). The fact that strangers are celebrating him at all reflects a man who found time to share his story—and a world that was desperate to hear it.

You can view his YouTube channel here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Ultimately, our Father in heaven provides just what lonely and desperate people need to hear: He knows us individually and personally (Ps. 139:1-24), he is available 24/7 for fellowship (Matt. 6:9; 1 John 1:3), he carries our burdens (1 Pet. 5:7), and he satisfies every need we have (Ps. 23:1-6).

Linguists tell us that babies of virtually all cultures use similar syllables for addressing their parents. It is easy for maturing babies to say the “Ah” vowel and “B, D, or M” consonant sounds. Parents of all cultures teach these primitive words as the titles for “Mother” and “Father.”

French: “Maman and Papa.”

Norwegian: “Mamma and Papa.”

Swahili: “Mama and Baba.”

Mandarin: “Mama and Baba.”

Chechen: “Naana and Daa.”

Every follower of Jesus knows our primal name for God—Father, or in the Aramaic, Abba, Dada. Or Daddy.

The pandemic has done a lot of strange things to the global economy over the last 14 months, from creating a massive shortage of semiconductor chips to a ballooning supply of hand sanitizer.

The US housing market has gone haywire too, as urbanites took advantage of remote work to leave expensive cities and resettle in smaller towns across the US. But it's not all that simple. Glenn Kelman, the chief executive of Redfin, broke down some of his observations of just how unusual the current US housing market is in a Tuesday Twitter thread:

Inventory is down 37% year over year to a record low. The typical home sells in 17 days, a record low. Home prices are up a record amount, 24% year over year, to a record high. And still homes sell on average for 1.7% higher than the asking price, another record.

It has been hard to convey how bizarre the US housing market has become. For example, a Bethesda, Maryland homebuyer included in her written offer a pledge to name her first-born child after the seller. She lost.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God’s people have no such worry. We have a guaranteed home in heaven, personally prepared by Christ, reserved in heaven for us. And, we should mention, it is fully paid for.

R. Kent Hughes writes:

There are some fathers who are sarcastic and constantly criticize their sons. I think of a certain little boy when I coached soccer. His demeaning father would run up and down the field belittling his boy with words like “chicken” and “woman.” He was the only parent I ever told to be quiet or leave the field.

Winston Churchill had such a father in Lord Randolph Churchill. He did not like the looks of Winston, he did not like his voice, he did not like to be in the same room with his son. He never complimented him—only criticized him. His biographers excerpt young Winston’s letters begging both parents for his father’s attention: “I would rather have been apprenticed as a bricklayer’s mate … it would have been natural … and I (would) have got to know my father …”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people grow up with that aching sense of being unloved, because of an absent or dysfunctional father. How glorious it is to be healed by the Father Heart of God.

Aly Femia keeps an Amazon-branded smart speaker in the room with her son so he can listen to lullabies. But she had no idea how comfortable her baby had become with the speaker. In the footage from her baby video monitor, she overheard a conversation that her son was having with … well … Alexa.

Having woken during the middle of the night, the boy turns and says, “Alexa,” which turned on the smart speaker, “I need daddy.” Now that Alexa is listening, it replies with, “What should I add?” The toddler replies, “daddy.”

We’re going to guess he was hoping Alexa was going to go get his dad. Maybe so he could get him another glass of water before he falls asleep. Or some other bedtime procrastination technique that kids are good at—another bedtime story.

Alexa then hilariously replied, “I’ve added daddy to your shopping list, is there anything else?” The adorable boy replied, “Urm … no,” which might be the sweetest thing ever.

Femia posted the video on TikTok where it has totaled over 3.7 million views because it’s simply hilarious and adorable. Commentors on social media have been wondering what exactly Alexa put on its shopping list, but industry analysts are sure that, whatever product it is, Femia will be seeing ads for it on all her devices for weeks.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In moments of crisis, we can call on God, not just as a distant Creator, but as a loving Dad who knows and cares about us. Even if it doesn’t seem feasible or logical, our heavenly Father is always near.

In the Indian village of Kongthong, not far from the border with Bangladesh, Shidiap Khongsti sings a soft, melodic tune. It sounds like a lullaby a mother would sing to a crying baby. Seconds later, she hears a tune in reply, and her nephew comes running toward her. The tune is much more than an idle melody: For centuries, villagers have used tunes as their names. Mothers give each newborn a distinctive melody within a week of birth.

The Indian village encompasses about 130 households in a small area. Locals never reuse the same tunes, even after a person dies. Shidiap said, “We don’t know how it began. Our forefathers used these tunes when they went hunting. But it’s highly likely the tradition has practical roots. Tunes carry over distances better than names.”

Opposite Shidiap’s house, a 50-year-old mother of seven, runs a grocery shop. In the article she says, “I know most people’s tunes.” When little children run past her shop, she sings their tune, lovingly. The village has a population of about 700, and she believes she knows about 500 melodies.

Shidiap concluded with this about her four children: “When they were babies, I sang a tune to send them to sleep, and that became their name. Only mothers can give their children these tunes. It’s out of mother’s love.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Fatherhood of God; Love of God – In his deep love for us God our Father also sings a song to his children (Zeph. 3:17) and gives each one a unique name (Rev. 2:17); 2) Motherhood; Mother’s Day – A mother loves each of her children in a unique way and gives special thought to the name that each one is given.

There was a man who was a good husband and dad. He loved his family faithfully, was always around, steady, and took care of them. His influence, even if wasn’t realized, was central in everyone’s life.

But his family didn’t fully appreciate the scope of his love until one day when they found his journal. Upon opening it, they could see the backstory to their memories. Their happy experiences were intricately planned and carefully executed. He even reflected about how glad he was that he gave his wife and children such joy.

When they could see the backstory, these previously hidden details, in the journal, the family was filled with a new kind of appreciation and love for their dad and husband. They were welcomed into the quiet place of intentional planning and loving execution. They could see how they were central to everything that he had done. Thumbing through the journal, they realized his love for them engulfed their entire experience.

In Ephesians 1, it’s as if the children of God are permitted to thumb through the journal of their heavenly Father. Reading through it, we find out that the experiences that we enjoy so much were carefully and intricately planned. God has set his love on his people before the foundation of the world, and he carried it out in real-time. What’s more, these thoughtful, intricate, and loving plans gave our Father you himself. He loves to shower blessing on his children.