I go to a multi-cultural college, in which there is a very prevalent Muslim community. Last term there was an event called Islamic Awareness Week, and something happened to me as a result of this that has never happened to me before: a girl came up to me and began asking me about my religion. I informed her that I was a Christian and showed her the cross I wear around my neck. She then started asking me about Christianity, and I like to think that I answered her quesions well. However, the one question that I couldn't seem to answer to anyone's satisfaction - including mine - was in regard to the Holy Trinity. The idea that God can be One and Three at the same time confused the girl I was speaking to, and I have to say that, when I had to try and explain it, I was confused as well.
It is the integral part of Christianity that God is a Holy Trinity: that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, are all part of the same Almighty God. (Thankfully, since reading Café Theology I have discovered that I am not the only Christian who has trouble getting my head around the concept of the Trinity.) Yet it is in indeed an important part of our belief that God is in Three parts and not just one.
In this post, I would like to focus on one part of the Trinity in particular: namely, God the Father, and what God being our Father means for our relationship with him.
Jimmy Carr once said, "If everyone is God's child, then what makes Jesus so special?" I would like to answer that with this: Jesus is God's One and Only Son, whereas we as God's children are, in fact, adopted. We were born of the world, by earthly means, and we choose to become God's children later on in life. In Ezekiel 16:1-14, God is speaking about the Israelites as a child whom He found abandoned and reared Himself. He does not claim to be the child's true biological Father; indeed, he says that their mother is a Hittite and their father an Amorite (verse 3). God says that He finds the child and takes care of it. And so this is how God first finds us. Whether or not we know it, we have been abandoned by the world. In the song Prodigal by Casting Crowns, the prodigal son returns after the world "left [them] high and dry". After God rescues the child, He clothes it and she becomes a queen (verses 9-13). And so the first way that God is our Father is by looking after us when the world has left us. Indeed, this is probably the first way in which we experience God's Fatherly love.
Jimmy Carr once said, "If everyone is God's child, then what makes Jesus so special?" I would like to answer that with this: Jesus is God's One and Only Son, whereas we as God's children are, in fact, adopted. We were born of the world, by earthly means, and we choose to become God's children later on in life. In Ezekiel 16:1-14, God is speaking about the Israelites as a child whom He found abandoned and reared Himself. He does not claim to be the child's true biological Father; indeed, he says that their mother is a Hittite and their father an Amorite (verse 3). God says that He finds the child and takes care of it. And so this is how God first finds us. Whether or not we know it, we have been abandoned by the world. In the song Prodigal by Casting Crowns, the prodigal son returns after the world "left [them] high and dry". After God rescues the child, He clothes it and she becomes a queen (verses 9-13). And so the first way that God is our Father is by looking after us when the world has left us. Indeed, this is probably the first way in which we experience God's Fatherly love.
Jesus also talks about how God looks after us as a Father; by giving us gifts (Matthew 7:11). In the same way that God clothed the abandoned child in Ezekiel, God seeks to bless us in our evey day lives. Sometimes we forget just how much God blesses us. It is almost a social expectation that miracles and blessings have to be big gestures. On the contrary, God uses the small things to bless us as well. Even in simple things such as if the bus comes on time, or if someone decides to smile at you as you commute rather than walking passed with an emotionless stare. God the Father gifts us - blesses us - in the small ways as well as the big ways to show how much He loves us. And these gifts are perfect, as is everything that is good and pure and comes from Heaven (James 1:17).
People often argue against this with the Problem of Evil: that if God's Fatherly love means that he seeks to bless us in our every day lives, why then do bad things happen to us? One of the answers to the Problem of Evil - and I am by no means saying that this is the only answer to the Problem of Evil; in fact I personally believe that there are many answers that work together to explain a variety of kinds of evil in the world - is that God is disciplining us. There are many verses in the Old Testament that speak of being corrected or disciplined by the LORD is to be blessed (Job 5:17; Proverbs 3:12). The latter even says that God disciplines those He loves "as a father the son he delights in". Paul also mentions that we should endure hardship as discipline, for God is treating us as His children. Therefore, one part of our relationship with God the Father is that - as all fathers discipline their children, God disciplines us (Hebrews 12:7).
Our relationship with God the Father is a complex one, one that involves Him caring for us more than anyone else ever could, blessing us in big ways and small ways in our everyday lives, and corrects us when we inevitably get it wrong. And so we have relationship with the Father God as well as with each other part of the Holy Trinity.
Our relationship with God the Father is a complex one, one that involves Him caring for us more than anyone else ever could, blessing us in big ways and small ways in our everyday lives, and corrects us when we inevitably get it wrong. And so we have relationship with the Father God as well as with each other part of the Holy Trinity.
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