We know that God is the kind of father that is gentle and playful with little children because Jesus showed us this. He took time to sit with children in his lap, to give them a blessing, and to offer encouraging words. (Matthew 19:13-15)

Do you Experience the Father’s Love?
How do you feel inside when you pray to God, calling Him “Father”? Do feel safe and warm and cared for? (As the sparrow in Luke 12:6-7 and the little chicks in Psalm 91). Do you see Him smiling with arms open wide to you? (As He’s portrayed in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32)

I talk to many people, including committed Christians, who don’t experience God this way. They believe He is their Heavenly Father and that He loves them, but they struggle to experience Him this way. Often their experience of God relates to their experience of their fathers. They say things like:

·       “To me, God the Father seems distant. I can’t see Him. I can’t hear Him. I can’t touch Him. I don’t feel His love. It’s a lot like my dad. He provided for us, but I didn’t have much of a relationship with him. ”

·       “My parents divorced when I was three. I hardly every saw my father after that. Now it’s hard for me to connect with God.”

·       “My dad was an angry alcoholic. He used to refer to himself as G.O.D., short for `Good Old Dad.’ He thought it was a joke, but I have the same distrust and disdain for my Heavenly Father.”

·       “There is a child in me who can’t tell the difference between Daddy who was always angry at me and God. Inside, I’m scared to death of God.”

·       “When you say that God loves me I have a hard time not remembering my father molesting me while telling me he loved me so much.”

Think about your relationship with your father. How has it impacted your image of your Heavenly Father? Have you projected onto God disappointments or hurts you experienced with your father? If so this can change. You can experience a healing of your father wounds. Your father hunger can be satisfied by connecting with God. Here’s how to get started.

Look to your Dad
For better or for worse our childhood relationships with our fathers (and our mothers, pastors, and teachers) is the psychological foundation that our image and experience of God the Father is built upon. So experiencing more of your Father God’s love begins with assessing these early relationships, especially with your dad. Appreciating the good and forgiving the bad in your dad will help to clear the way for you to see and feel God for who he is.

What good things did you receive from your dad? The gift of life? Material provision? Physically being there at home, at special events in your life, in times of need? Good advice? Kind words? Praise? Appropriate affection? Listening and caring? Whatever good you received from him, even if it’s not much, is important to appreciate it. Take it into your soul and thank your dad and God.

How did you father disappoint you or hurt you? No father, except God, is perfect. Being aware of your needs that weren’t met and your hurts that are left over is the beginning point to healing and forgiving. Even if you don’t feel safe reconciling your relationship with an abusive father it’s still in your interests to pray and work at forgiving your father so that you can heal.

Look to Jesus
Earlier I referenced the tender scene of Jesus playing with the children. Jesus often blessed children. (See also Matthew 11:25, 18:3, 19:14, 21:16) With people of all ages, Jesus was extraordinarily caring. In his prayers, in his ministry to those in need, and in his suffering and death for us Jesus showed us just what a Loving Father we have.

This is one reason why reading the accounts of Jesus’ life in the gospels is such a blessing to me. When I see Jesus touching the leper I know that God is extending a hand of comfort to the part of me that I am embarrassed about. When I hear Jesus forgive the woman caught in adultery I know that I am forgiven too.

And when I see and hear Jesus I know that I am seeing and hearing my Heavenly Father. Jesus is God in human form and he did the very things that God the Father does, he is the exact representation of God the Father (John 10:30, 14:10), Hebrews 1:3).

Look to the Body of Christ
Have you ever thought about the Christian church being referred to as “the Body of Christ”? Since Jesus ascended to heaven God is present on earth in Spirit only which means he is invisible. And at times we all need a “God with skin on” what the Apostle Paul called an “ambassador” of God’s reconciling love (2 Corinthians 5:20) Not to replace God, but to mediate His care to us and to make it more tangible.

Along these lines, James said, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16) We’re wise to not only confess our own sins to someone, as unto God, but also the sins of our fathers, since these are passed down to us, causing pain and tending to be repeated. (Leviticus 26:40)

We need to look for and appreciate our Heavenly in the people around us and throughout God’s creation as well.

Look to Prayer
David was called a man after God’s own heart. He experienced a closeness to God and a passion for God that all Christians admire. Why? Because he shared with God his hurts and hopes, his fears and faith, his complaints and thanksgiving - continually. He did this in the psalms he wrote.

God ordained the Psalms to be right in the center of the Bible. They say to us that God cares about all our feelings. That we can talk to Him about anything, anytime. Even if we don’t trust Him or feel distant from Him or are angry with Him.

David talked to God this honestly. So did Job. Even Jesus did as he sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane and as he hung suffocating on the cross for the sins of all people. We can be honest with God too.

So pray or write your own psalms and you’ll feel more connected to your Father God.

Look to the Father’s Love in the Bible
In the Bible are “the Words of Life.” Here we can see and hear God our Father. Prayerful meditation on Scripture, day after day, year after year, is essential to experiencing our Father’s love. And the Bible has a lot to say about God the Father. Here are a few of my favorite verses:

“[The Father] guarded him as the apple of his eye.” - Deuteronomy 32:10

“A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing.” - Psalm 68:5-6

“How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” - Matthew 7:11

“Your Father in heaven is not willing that any one of these little ones should be lost.” - Matthew 18:14

“While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20, read the whole story in Luke 15:11-31)

“Jesus answered, `I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” - John 14:6,9

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [or Comforter] to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth.” - John 14:16

“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, `Abba, Father [or Pa Pa, Father].’” - Romans 8:15