Recently my grandson got hurt while on my watch. It was awful. In the moments after it happened and for entire time it took for his injury to heal, I would have done anything in my power to fix him myself. I would have, without question, made everything all better for him. When I heard the crash and subsequent cry, I literally rushed to his aid, no hesitation. That’s what we do as grandparents and parents. I get it, there are some pretty crappy parents/grandparents out there, but most have a deep desire to be there, at a moment’s notice, for a child. It’s just that simple. A child doesn’t need to beg for us to lift a hand to repair what’s broken because it is our very nature to want to help.

Scripture says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”.*

We as humans are not always really good at gleening the proper theological conclusion from scripture. I think too often this verse has been used to maintain a mindset that we are evil and God is good. In our self-centricness, we assume he’s teaching us something about our nature, when in reality he’s teaching us about his.

He is a good, good father.

Yes, we have the capacity for evil and he does not. This verse is not meant to teach us of our failings but of his perfection. We, because we don’t understand his true nature nor our own nature inside of and in conjunction with the God of all creation and therefore have a well maintained capacity for evil, still love our children and would do good to our children. Why then do we expect less from the perfect, good, good father, God?

One may argue it’s simply because we do not understand the character and nature of God.

I believe some of it is because, in flatly assigning our nature as evil and his as good, we assume if our decision would be to help automatically, his may be to hesitate and further evaluate (as if he doesn’t know everything already). Hear me out. We don’t really believe we deserve his intervention. We don’t see him as our father, our daddy, but as judge, authoritarian, boss, owner. We know ourselves and we think ” I wouldn’t help me if I were God”. We think we have to beg and barter to earn his intervention, because our “evil” can never measure up to his “good”.

I’m here to tell you, we have accepted a lie.

If he is our good, good father, then we must be his good, good children.

Yes, you read that right.

In scripture there are multiple verses that attempt to reveal what was done before the foundation of the world. The general idea is that basically he redeemed everything before he even created it. We were redeemed, as children, before we existed. He did everything that was needed to insure and seal our sonship even before we could barter it away. He not only created us, he adopted us as well. It’s like we became his children twice. Whether we believe it not, we are his children, the very sons and daughters of God.

Only for our benefit, not his, does it become necessary to believe. He already knows I am his child. All we have to do is accept that truth for ourselves. None of this gospel was ever about going to heaven, or escaping hell, or even being forgiven of sin. It was, and is, and always will be about having a beautiful perfect child/father relationship with the most High, the Creator of all things in and under and above the Earth!

That is a huge gift! Huge!

It’s such a huge gift, that the son who fully understands and functions rightly in this relationship, waited to be revealed at the proper time in history and then laid down his own life to give us the ability to accept, understand and function rightly in it as well!

I say all of this to say that you need to stop begging God for healing or help while secretly believing you’ll never be able to earn it and relax, lean into the understanding that as soon as he heard your cry, he, without hesitation, came rushing to your aid! Don’t fight him. Believe him. Trust him.

He is a good, good father! He is your Good, Good Father!

 

 

• Matthew 7:11 NKJ