Happy Father’s Day, Everyday

It’s been noted that people who grow up in abusive families often have trouble trusting God. If your own father abandoned you or hurt you physically or emotionally, how can you identify with God’s constant, loving care? And yet time and again, God works to draw even the most defensive people among us into His loving embrace. He offers a fresh start to those who ask for it. While the past is a powerful influence in our lives, God is more powerful.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Strictly speaking, God is a spirit and therefore has no gender. But authors of scripture were inspired to compare Him to a loving father time and time again.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him,” we read in I John 3:1.

During his three-year ministry on earth, Jesus encouraged his followers not only to obey God and scripture, but to think of God as a loving father. He even used the word “Abba,” an Aramaic term that was left in its original language in subsequent Greek and English translations. The term is thought to mean “Daddy,” an intimate term of endearment used by young children. God has granted those who believe on Him – all who believe on Him – to think of themselves as His children.

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (I John 1:12-13)

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and stand-in fathers whose children look to them for unrelenting love and support. And Happy Father’s Day, everyday, to the One who gives all life. ■

-Janine Pumilia