I lifted Jacob to discover not only was he crying for some milk/attention, but that he had inconveniently sprayed himself from head to toe in poo. A nasty dosh of the squirts - that even metal plated nappies could not contain - left me with a baby who wreaked of a death & a stomach curdling with nausea.
So I put him down and shouted, "Get yourself cleaned up you filthy little creature. How dare you cover yourself in this horribleness. You repulse me. Get out of my sight until you are washed, cleaned & sorted out. I don't want to know you until then."
Ok, before you contact social service this is clearly not what happened. I hate poo & I love my son. I changed his soiled clothes, washed him in the bath & comforted him in my arms until his distress left & he fell asleep again.
But which of these father images do you hold of God? If you take a honest moment of reflection, who do you see?
Our God has revealed Himself to us as a perfect, loving, Heavenly Father desperately desiring relationship & intimacy with us. Longing to clean up our dirtiness, our uncleanliness, our sin through faith in Jesus. Taking delight in lighting us from our helpless states, rebuilding a broken relationship with Him and comforting us in our distress.
Many factors in our personal lives & faulty understandings of the Person of God may cause us to hold an other image. But these are wrong.
If this is an area of confusion, why not take some time to read through the Gospel of Mathew, Mark, Luke or John & see our God through the eyes of Jesus?
Or why not pause for a moment & praise Father God for being a loving, perfect Daddy willing to clean us up & hold us in His arms again?
