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Thursday, February 03, 2005
I heard once that it is hard for a girl to have a conception of God that rises above her father. I'm not sure if that's true or not. Frankly, I didn't really give it all that much thought. I have enough to think about with my own father.
See, my father died when I was 13. It was, to me, very unexpected since he was only 38 years old.
But I had an incredible 13 years and I don't think it's revisionist history, either. I especially remember moments from the last couple of years vividly...it seems like those were the years we were beginning to really "gel" as father and son.
He taught me to fish...which I didn't enjoy then, and still don't enjoy now.
He took me hunting...which I loathed even more than fishing, and still loathe.
We went to college football games that were sold out, with no tickets, little money and no plans and still managed to get in the games together.
We went to college basketball games and minor league baseball games, neither of which were sold out and we'd buy cheap tickets and help ourselves to "free seat upgrades" as the game went on.
He coached one of my little league baseball teams, and one of my basketball teams. Our teams didn't win much but we had fun, and when he wasn't coaching he was at everything I played (even hockey games--which he didn't understand seeing as we were in Alabama) or was in (even school plays and such).
We played "HORSE" in the driveway, hit golf balls and made divots in the yard, threw footballs, pitched baseballs...the works.
He was also firm with discipline, too. He didn't do it often, but when it came time, he used whatever force necessary to keep me in line. He said no a lot, too. He made me do yard work and other chores and there were times when we disagreed. It wasn't all great stuff, although you can tell by the entry, the good parts of the relationship were more in number than the difficult ones.
Even when we disagreed, I trusted him. If he said "no" to something, I may have disagreed and barked a little, but I never doubted that he really cared about me. If I didn't understand something, he tried his best to explain it, and if I disagreed, that was too bad (he didn't change his mind much) but he'd still try to give me a reason. It never entered my brain that he would act with anything other than my best interests in mind. It really didn't.
I also realize that wasn't everyone's experience. Some fathers weren't around. Others were abusive. Others were distant. Others were passive. I could go on, but you get the point. Sometimes our image of our heavenly Father can be skewed by the influence of our earthly one.
That's why reading verse 8 can be somewhat dicey, because everybody has some pre-conception of a father. But here it is: "Therefore do not be like [the Gentiles]; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him."
In fact, you can look at chapter 7: 9--11 just to make sure that you have the image of a Father that Jesus is talking about: "Or what man is there among you, when his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he shall ask for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!"
In other words, no matter what our earthly father gave us as a frame of reference, our heavenly Father is good to us. He always deals with us with the idea of what is best for us...we can trust Him, totally and completely.
So, when we pray, sometimes the answer to that prayer isn't what we think it should be, but we can trust that God has some sort of reason for the answer we got. And He'll make sure we find out in due time.
So, what I'd like for you to do today is think about the good things you can think of in your father, and compare and contrast those to what you know about God as our Father. It'll be interesting to see how they're similar and how they're different.
And, tomorrow, we'll start looking at the specifics of the Lord's Prayer.
Brent 3:04 AM
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