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Crosswords: My Father
Most of us pass judgement on an entire group of people based on our encounters with one or two individuals from that people group. You can call it racism or bias or bigotry, and often it is, but it’s still human nature. We make these judgements based on color, geography, religion, sexual orientation, etc. ‘If you’ve met one you’ve met them all,’ is the dismissive doctrine by which many of us live.
It’s a fatal mistake, trusting our flawed human nature in that way. We miss out on vital relationships. We stop educating ourselves to the truth about the world and the people around us. We strengthen the bias that other groups have about the group with which we belong. Worse, we continue to offer that same deadly drink to our children and theirs.
Without being cognizant of it many use that same skewed criteria to gain a mental image of God. What we see in our earthly fathers determines how we view our heavenly one. If your father was absent for most or all of your life you may see God as someone inattentive to your problems or those of the world. If criticism, judgement and abuse were the norm around your home, you may at times find yourself cowering in the corner awaiting some God sent calamity. In the same way, a loving and forgiving father paves the way for a more benign view of God. You get the idea.
This method of establishing a view of God is not completely off base. We are of course made in His image; meaning we possess some of His same qualities and attributes. This is no more apparent than in the story of the “prodigal” or lost son (Luke 15). The father in that story allows the son to leave his presence without going after him. He allows the son to live a life against his wishes bringing on himself a life of misery. And, most importantly, the father is watching and anxiously waiting for the son to return to the same loving house he left. Distant at times. Harsh at times. Forgiving always.
The difference between our Heavenly father and most of our earthly ones is that everything God does, be it exercising discipline or lavishing us with His love, is for the sole purpose of establishing or reestablishing an active and vital relationship with us. He is everything our fathers are with a twist. His motives are always pure.
If you really want to know your heavenly father you can’t make judgements based upon your earthly one. That’s a big disservice to both. Simply peruse the pages of the Gospels and take an account of the life of Christ; for He is “the image (or the exact representation) of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). You’ll like what you see.

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