A Good Father Reflects God

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Barbara Harper

I often start my prayer time with what we call “the Lord’s prayer” in Matthew 6:7-14. Doing so helps me keep on track rather than being so easily distracted. I use the phrases in the prayer as a launching point. When I pray for daily bread, I mention other needs of the day. When I pray for forgiveness, I ask God to search me and show me anything I need to confess to Him.

The prayer begins, “Our father in heaven.” I thank God for being my Father, for taking me into His family, for giving us that picture of a loving father to help us understand more what He is like.

When I was a child, I had an image in my mind of a father as a soft-spoken man in a cardigan, button-down shirt, slacks, and slippers, with a newspaper in one hand and a pipe in the other.

That’s not a picture of my own father.

For years I wondered where in the world that idea came from. I assumed it stuck with me from some book I had read as a child. I finally realized that portrayal came from Fred MacMurray, the father in the TV show, My Three Sons.

No father is perfect, and some fall far from the ideal. But the fact that we have good and bad concepts of what a father should be points us to the reality that there is such a thing as a good father. Our image of what a father’s care should be helps us form a concept of God’s loving care in our minds.

The Bible tells us what qualities God has as a father, mirrored in good earthly fathers.

Love. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are”(1 John 3:1). Romans 5:6-8 tells us that God loved us when we were weak, ungodly, and sinful. He didn’t wait for us to clean up our act before coming to Him: He invites us to let Him clean us up.

Teaching. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8). We’re not born with wisdom. God patiently teaches us through His Word, experience, and other people.

Compassion. “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14). Some translations say He pities us. He knows our weaknesses and frailties.

Chastening. “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:5-6). It’s not a kindness to let a child run amok without correction. God chastens us out of love.

Providing. “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:31-33). Just before these verses, Jesus points to the birds and flowers that God takes care of, assuring us He values us more than them and He’ll take care of us, too.

Giving. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). God has promised to give us everything we need. He often gives a great deal more than that, too.

Even more than physical gifts, God gave Himself, through His Son, to redeem us: “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20b).

Protection. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler (Psalm 91:1-4).

Comfort. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). No one comforts like Him.

Forgiveness. What better picture of God’s forgiveness is there than that of the prodigal son’s father in Luke 15:11-32. The son selfishly demanded all that was coming to him and then went out and squandered it in sin and indulgence. But when he came to the end of himself and went home, the father was looking for him and joyfully ran to him and embraced him.

Though earthly fathers fail us, God never will. “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, But the LORD will take me up” (Psalm 27:10). “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15).

If your father is no longer living, or relationships with him are strained, “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home” (Psalm 68:5-6a).

“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:6-7). “Abba” was the Aramaic word for “father,” a term expressing both respect and endearment.

Imagine, people as sinful and self-centered as we are can call God our Father–not just in a general way, but in a deeply personal and loving way. What amazing grace.

If you’re not a child of God, please read how to become one here.

And if you do know God as a Father, I hope you’ll join me in taking time to bask in His love and care today.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Some of the good reads found this week:

Is God the Father Like My Father? “I was 25 years old before I could say the word ‘father’ while praying. The word was foreign to me. It didn’t roll off my tongue the way it did for many of my Christian friends. It felt like a word from a foreign language. In one regard, it meant nothing. It was jibberish. But in another, it meant a world of things. Amid the cultural barriers, it still struck a nerve, because while it meant nothing, it meant everything. It meant broken things. Scary things. Hurtful things.”

Don’t Make Friends with Doubt, HT to Challies. “That believers don’t believe perfectly isn’t the question. The question is, How do we respond? When we discover ourselves doubting God’s goodness or power, do we resist it? Do we pet unbelief in self-pity? Is it safe for us to doubt the Lord, his promises, and his cross?”

Because Jesus Said So, HT to Challies. “One of the mistakes I think we evangelicals sometimes make – with our entirely legitimate and proper focus on the cross – is to confuse understanding the means of salvation with actually being saved. We can confuse understanding the theology of the cross with believing in the actual object of our salvation.”

Triggered: How to Overcome Destructive Obsessions. “In our journey through life, we all experience moments when something sets us off — when an event or interaction triggers us into anger, depression, or destructive behavior patterns that we know aren’t God’s will for our lives. These triggering events can create compulsions or obsessions in our minds, driving us toward actions we cannot stop in our own power.”

Three Ways Weakness Is a Gift, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “In 2 Corinthians 12:10, the Apostle Paul wrote one of the most counter-intuitive sentences ever: ‘So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’ This sentence makes absolutely no sense. Who takes pleasure in things like weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties, even if they’re for Jesus? We normally try to avoid these things, and if we end up suffering them, we don’t usually take pleasure in them.”

Twice-Healed: The Blind Man at Bethsaida, HT to Knowable Word. “Mark is the only evangelist to record the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (8:22–26). What makes this miracle instructive, even odd, is its two-staged nature. Let’s consider why this healing at Bethsaida is central to Mark’s Gospel and how believers can draw comfort from it.”

Happy Father’s Day to the dads tomorrow!

“One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” — George Herbert

Laudable Linkage

Posted on June 18, 2022 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few of the good reads found this week:

First Love. “As I watched all of this unfold, I also watched what being around this young man did for the members of our church and me. There is something contagious about being around someone with that first love. There were several things I noticed in this man’s life that gave me pause to consider my own spiritual life.”

Why You Should Name and Even Feel Negative Emotions, HT to Challies. “I rarely dealt with or named my emotions—at least not the “negative” ones. They had to be killed, banished, ignored, and stuffed. I learned this from both Christian circles (like the counselor above) and my own fears. I didn’t want others to see my emotions. Negative emotions always equaled sin and weakness in my mind, a reason for people to look down their noses at me. So I tried to kill my negative feelings with kindness—or gratitude. But what if there’s goodness in every emotion—even in the ones we don’t like so much?”

When the Story Doesn’t Have a Happy Ending, HT to Challies. “The ‘successful’ missionaries always have lots of numbers. They fill their newsletters with compelling stories and photographs of large groups of believers. But nobody gives presentations about evangelistic events where no one showed up, or posts a picture of the local pastor who abused his daughter, or writes a newsletter about the exciting convert who just slowly disappears.”

Tyranny Follows Where Truth Fades, HT to Challies. “Having escaped the tyrannical regime of North Korea, where criticism of ‘Dear Leader’ can land you (and your family) in a concentration camp, she never anticipated the thought control she’d find at this elite American university.”

Speaking Truth in Marital Conflict, HT to Challies. “We know that when couples use words like always, never, and only to describe each other’s behavior or to express a complaint, it will not help to resolve their conflict. These words exaggerate and overgeneralize in a way that provokes a spouse to defensiveness. Instead of considering and talking about their spouse’s concern, an accused spouse will be tempted to prove that they are not always guilty of this or that behavior.”

What “Leah’s Eyes Were Weak” Means—and What It Says About Bible Interpretation, HT to Challies. Admittedly, the state of Leah’s eyes doesn’t affect any major doctrine. Our opinions about what the statement about her eyes in Scripture means is not a hill to die on. But I appreciate the process Mark Ward takes us through when a passage of Scripture isn’t clear and even commentators disagree.

How Can I Be a Good Father When Mine Walked Out?

How Making an If/Then List Can help Your Mental Health, HT to Linda. “Recently, while going through the grief of a loss and all the emotional turmoil that can entail, I made myself an ‘if/then list.’ I thought through what helps—really helps—me in any given mood or symptom, and then made myself a list with easy, actionable steps to take if I found myself in any of those situations.”

This is as good a time as any for my occasional reminder that linking to a post does not mean full endorsement of everything about that site. If a friend’s link sends me to a site I’ve never visited before, and I consider sharing the post, I’ll look at the “about” section to have some idea where the person is coming from. I wouldn’t share something I have strong reservations about without some caveats, but obviously I don’t know everything about a site when I’ve just read one post there. And we often have some disagreements even with our dearest friends. We need to be discerning in all we read.

I watched a program last night in which what I would consider to be normal father-son love and support brought a couple of people to tears. I wondered if seeing such interaction was so rare in the world that it brought forth such an emotion. Maybe these folks didn’t have that fatherly support–or maybe they did, and the memory brought tears. At any rate, I very much agree with the statement below. Happy Father’s Day tomorrow to the dads out there. Keep up the good work. It’s vital.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on June 15, 2019 by Barbara Harper

Here are some good reads I’ve discovered recently:

The Oh So Human Dad’s Club. A look at some biblical fathers commemorated in the “Hall of Faith” despite serious flaws – encouragement that God can use any of us who are “only human.”

Six Reasons We Love Faithful Fathers, HT to True Woman.

A Guide to Same Page Summer. This introduces a summer Bible reading plan, but it has some great principles for Bible reading in general.

Distinguishing Marks of a Quarrelsome Person, HT to Challies. “Of course, there are honest disagreements and agree-to-disagree propositions, but that’s not what the Bible means by quarreling. Quarrels, at least in Proverbs, are unnecessary arguments, the kind that honorable men stay away from (Prov. 17:14; 20:3). And elders too (1 Tim. 3). These fights aren’t the product of a loving rebuke or a principled conviction. These quarrels arise because people are quarrelsome.”

Why We Go to Church on Vacation.

When Old They’ll Still Bear Fruit, HT to Challies.

Losing a Foster Child. Some people don’t want to foster because of how painful it would be to let a child go after caring for it. But some children need just that kind of love and care during an unsettling time in their lives. This has some good help for the pain of giving back a foster child.

The True Woman blog, an arm of the Revive Our Hearts ministry, is holding a summer book club reading through Elisabeth Elliot’s just-published book, Suffering Is Never For Nothing. This book comes from a series of messages Elisabeth shared at a conference and is different from her earlier book, A Path Through Suffering (though I would guess they probably overlap). The book club starts this Tuesday, June 18, and continues for 6 weeks.

Someone set up a “bird photo booth” and caught some great close-up photos of birds.