After talking to the Salesmanship Club one of our prominent men quietly said to me, "Fred, at my father's funeral I almost came apart. I went into depression because 1 realized that I had never been able to tell him that I loved him. He was an austere man and worked all the time, but I wanted to tell him but I never got to. "
I asked a preacher in Denver how he was getting along. He replied with tears in his eyes, "my father recently died and we did not get to complete our business. " Even abused children, particularly women, have told me that though they hated their father, they regretted his dying because somewhere in their deepest heart they wanted to become friends.
Let me think through with you the personal relationship of God as father. Our friend, theologian Haddon Robinson, points out that the word "father" is used only five times in the Old Testament and it is never used in a personal sense. It is always used in a national context. None of the great figures such as Moses, Joseph, Joshua, David, Solomon, ever were permitted to call God father. They had to call him Yahweh. After Christ's death and resurrection we have been told to call him father, even Abba father, which means "daddy," a very familiar term.
This concept has not been easy for me, because the personal relationship as a father has not come naturally. I understood the responsibility, the position, the function of father, but in some strange way I always wanted to keep my distance, almost as I did in the corporation. However, in later years I have learned that the relationship is personal, not functional. One of our children recently said to me that the children are happy that in the last fifteen years I have had the opportunity of "re-parenting." It is largely because I found that I had been a function rather than a person as a father. God the father wants a personal relationship with us. He shows this in five ways:
(1) He initiates it. My secretary has always known that I will take a call from my family at any time, but the important thing is whether or not I make a call rather than take a call. God initiates the relationship; He doesn't react to it.
(2) He loves us. "We love him because He first loved us." The book, An Humbler Heaven, points out "the critical part of the Christian faith is realizing that God loves us and therefore we return His love to Him and we radiate His love to our fellow Christians." It is humbling to realize that He totally knows me, yet loves me. Often when I ask people "Do you believe that God really loves you?" they'll say, "no, if He knew me as well as I know me, He couldn't." He does know you and He loves you.
(3) He forgives. A lot of people want to believe that God is tolerant, but God isn't tolerant, because that would be second-best. He is not tolerant because He is forgiving. Why should I want Him to be tolerant when I can be forgiven? It's like drinking muddy water instead of fresh water. Since he has provided forgiveness, there's no need for me to hide. My friend Steve Brown once said to God, "my sin is more real to me than you are, and I'm gonna stay right here until you become more real than my sin."
(4) God is for me. Remember how Jesus told his disciples that if we being human want to give good things to our children, how much more the heavenly father wants to give good things to us? My friend Ray Stedman said his life changed when he realized that God was for him and not against him. Abba father is for me.
(5) He is always there. Loneliness and alienation are two great outcomes of our mobile society. During the early days of the space program they constructed isolation chambers to test applicants. They wanted to see how long they could be out of contact and communication, including hearing, seeing, and feeling, without breaking up emotionally. Dr Howard Rome was one of those in charge of the experiment and he told me that they found certain individuals who were unbreakable in isolation. He, not being a Christian, thought that I would be interested in the fact that the common denominator of those who could not be broken was prayer. As long as they could pray they could not be isolated. God is always there, our father God is always there.
God doesn't just accept the responsibility and function of fatherhood: He loves us as His dear children. We may have unfinished business with our earthly fathers, but our heavenly father is always "open for business."
