The Infallible Father

There are so many thought provoking and life changing concepts in the Sermon on the Mount but the one I have been mulling over for the last few days is Jesus’s depiction of our Heavenly Father. You know, the one where he, slightly hyperbolically, introduces the notion of good fathers naturally having the desire to give their children good gifts if they ask for them and then goes on to add that our Heavenly Father has even more desire to give good gifts to those who ask (Matthew 7:9-11). But what does this all mean, really?

So many of us go through life slightly dissatisfied with what we have, with how we look, with where we live, with the people around us, with the society we live in, with the things we have at our disposal. Yes, perhaps not all the time, and not with everything, but there can be a tendency to dwell on the things we’re missing rather than focusing on the positive things we have. Maybe it’s just a modern Western malaise (but there are many, many societies in the past that have struggled in the same way). Maybe we take so much of the good things we have for granted that we don’t really see them as good anymore. Is it an attitude thing? Or, perhaps, focusing on a different aspect of the concept, are there things, good things, that we could be experiencing in our lives that we don’t get the opportunity to appreciate, simply because we don’t ask? After all, one of the most serious consequences of the Fall is the self-centred notion that we know best. Does our stubborn pride prevent us from asking our amazing Father for things, presents, blessings, gifts, that could very well be coming our way if we were simply to have the faith and trust to put out our hands expectantly? And, maybe that’s it… maybe it simply that we have lost our sense of trust in an infallible Father who really does love us, with a passion that led Him to the cross.

If God, our Father, really does love us, really does want to give us amazing gifts, and absolutely does not make mistakes in how he goes about the gift giving business, what’s holding us back? Why aren’t we seeing these amazing gifts in our lives? Why aren’t we rejoicing in them every day and sharing them with everyone around us? Well, maybe some of us are, but I’m sure that’s not true for all of us.

There are lots of people in the world who struggle with the thought of our God as an infallible Father, a Father who loves us and doesn’t make mistakes. The problems of pain and injustice are hurdles that are too high for us to get over. We see all the people around us, or perhaps we struggle ourselves, fighting through life, having to deal with pain and suffering everyday and we, quite naturally, ask, ‘where is this loving God who delights in giving us good gifts?’ Why isn’t He stepping in to stop all this bad stuff? If He cares so much, why isn’t He making a difference? It’s a really difficult question to answer - one that many much more intelligent people that I have tried to tackle – but, for me, in this moment, gazing over at a smiling Father with arms outstretched, the only thing I can think is, ‘do I really have enough trust in Him to leap into His arms?’

In another part of that amazing sermon, Jesus explained to his disciples how prayer works. In it he suggests that asking God for good gifts, for the things we need, is not a one-off process. The expectation is that we will be asking Him every single day for the things we need, just for that day – not our weekly groceries, or our monthly wages, but our daily bread (Matthew 6:11). Later on, he references this concept by urging his followers to, every day, seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). When we do this, our infallible Father will make sure that we get the clothes we need to wear and the food we need to survive. Just as with the good gifts, there is an emphasis on our actions – we need to seek, we need to ask, we need to trust… we need to trust.

There are a lot of things happening in the world at the moment, many of which are shaking our sense of security, our faith in our leaders – the ones responsible for shaping the future of our societies. In July 1955, the US Congress passed a resolution to imprint on all American currency the words, ‘In God We Trust’. Perhaps, just perhaps, we need to hold on to that phrase with a smidge more fortitude in the weeks and months ahead; knowing that it’s not the money itself that provides the bread we need every day - or our leaders, or power, or markets, or systems of governance, or science, or bight ideas - but rather our infallible Father, the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10).