He Is Our Father

Verse 8 in Isaiah 64 is one of those marvelously loaded verses of the Bible. This one verse has actually inspired two blogs.

But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand.

It declares that God is indeed our father. Just what does that mean? What do or did we expect of our fathers? I know I grew to expect love, care, safety, security and indeed to be shielded from the world as I matured. I also received direction and correction. I expected most of these things very much when I was young and less and less as I matured. The opposite is true of our Heavenly Father. The Lord provides all of these things and I expect them more and more as I mature, not less and less.

When the Lord provides the correction component and things don’t go as we had hoped, we often accuse him of not providing other expectations such as protection.

From time to time, I have written about the lessons I learn from our English Springer Spaniel. Marley was raised and trained in all female home and she just appeared out of the blue just before I entered the hospital for treatment. When she came to live with us, it was soon evident that she regarded me as the master of the home…the alpha male of the pack…but most of all, the father. This dog is confident that I can actually protect her from lightening and thunder. She runs to me to shield her. She is compliant, loving and always defers to me except when I disappoint her.

We have eight grandchildren, some of whom were babies or toddlers three years ago. When the visiting babies arrived for a visit, Marley welcomed them and completed satisfactorily all the expected niceties like allowing them to sit on her, to maul her to the point of pain and even licking their cute little faces if they came too close.

It was all an act.

She felt nothing but resentment for the intrusion of the babies into her world where she considers herself the baby and deserves all of the attention. Even to this day, when our children leave with their children, we all laugh at the reality that Marley is so very happy the little ones are leaving. Her tail wagging goodbyes are just too enthusiastic.

What was very telling, however, was her treatment of me the master, or the father if you will, after the departure if they remained too long like over night. She clearly blamed me for her misfortune. The baby visit was my fault and the longer they stayed the longer she attempted to punish me by refusing to come near me or respond to her name. All tail wagging stopped in my presence. Temporarily she deferred to others in the house and would not respond to my instructions. She even turned her back to ignore me.

She was modeling behavior that is disturbingly human. How often did we act like this to our human fathers? How often do we act like this with our Heavenly Father when things don’t go exactly as we have wished? I have on occasion reacted just like her. At times I have turned my back on my God. It is not for long, but I, and I suspect you may, act this way. We stop praying. Our devotional time is shortened or forgotten for a time. We may commit rebellious acts and actually defy our Heavenly Father. I am so thankful that our God, like any good father, has very broad shoulders and expects our bad reactions to his direction and correction. He is our Father and will ever be so no matter how silly we may act as children.

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