The Father's Love

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"Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, 'I am the light of the world, he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.'" (John 8:12).

When I was growing up, I was blessed with a wonderful dad. He modeled the qualities that to me were a living example of godliness, honesty, integrity and responsibility. Through his love, my dad taught me so much about my heavenly Father.

Fathers are very important in God's plan for a family. They have a wonderful opportunity to encourage, teach, council and model the Christian life for their children, and they do this out of the desire to be an obedient servant to God.

Sadly, many children grow up without such a good example (either in a single parent home or in the existence of a somehow emotionally absent or abusive father). They did not experience having a relationship with their dads. Consequently they grow up with a love deficiency longing for true love and true acceptance. They search everywhere in vain for experiencing or understanding unconditional love which can only be filled through God.

All what they knew and experienced were those voices revealing the kind of love offered by the world; the kind of love that is always conditional and does not satisfy the heart; that always require from them to be more than they are and that in order to inquire it they need to keep pushing, striving and do everything possible to gain… good looks, be considered intelligent, popular, popular, successful, powerful, have a good job and lots of money, connection, etc. Then they will find themselves like a small boat in the middle of a wide ocean completely at the mercy of the waves. In the end it becomes the kind of love that is followed by much doubt, grief, misfortune, and disaster.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

The more we read the Holy Bible the more we feel overwhelmed by how much God's heart is burning with desire to bring all His children back home. He is the Father who knew us before we were conceived; He is the one who knitted us together in our mother's womb. It is about a Father who loves His children unconditionally and desire for them to sit at His table and participate in His joy and long to have a relationship with Him.

Yet He is the kind of Father whose love does not force itself on us, that allow us the freedom to make our own choice to stay in the darkness, and allow it to absorb us completely that there is no light left to turn toward and return to or to step out to His light. The kind of love that let go of His beloved children even though He knows the pain that will cause Him and the risk of losing them.

When God created the world He intended to be perfect for us and full of true love but sin brought pain and suffering that passed from generation to generation. Despite of Adam's sin God never pulled back His arms to welcome us back home, He never withheld His blessing and never stopped thinking of us as His sons and daughters.

God desires more for us than just to be our Father, that He sent His only beloved son, Jesus Christ, to reveal and minister to us His Father's love and desire to be our Father and also to bore upon Himself the weight of our sin and made away for our salvation, and through His victory we can become once again His beloved children.

In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), we can clearly see how much God love all His children and longing for them to come home.

It is about a father who has two sons and he loves them both dearly. Although the younger son brought up in a good home with everything good in hand, he desired to explore and enjoy life, to be independent and to distance himself from his father's love, wisdom and influence. So he asked his father to divide his wealth and give him his share.

When the father granted his request and gave him his share, the son went far away country where he can live without any regard for tomorrow, doing what the people of the world do and participating in their sin. Until one day he woke up and find that all he had wasted away and find himself without home, without money, without food, without recourses but find himself with the swine of the world (unclean and unsaved) his desire to eat their food. Suddenly, when this child come a step away from death when he remembered home.

How many people go through this road first before they come to this conclusion? And how many was lost forever?

When we look at Judas and Peter we realize that they both were in the presence of Jesus Christ, and that both betrayed him, Judas choose to let go of the truth and choose death but Peter choose in the midst of his despair to return with many tears and choose life.

Unfortunately there are no rules to tell us that without the youngest son prior knowledge of his home (the word of God) and the benefit of having been in the present of his father all his young years he would not be able to come home. It seems that some people have to lose everything in order to come into their senses.

Now the younger son is coming back home with a new heart and understanding, his coming back with new attitude (genuine repentant) that he is no longer a selfish son but someone who come to realize that living with his father is the best life in the world, that he rather be a servant in his father's house than be without his father. He was ready for confession and asking for forgiveness before his father.

As the younger son went through his journey and his trial, we need to look at how the father's heart endures his son's decision to leave and may never come back. Even though the young son left home with his portion of goods his father still loved him and ready to forgive him and even it may seem to his son that he has forgotten him, the father's love for him will never diminished. Instead we can imagine his father grieving and pleading with God to protect and help his son to find his way home.

Now we can clearly see the true love of the father that full of compassion "And he arose and came to his Father, but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion on him and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him" (Luke 16:20). As our heavenly Father, we see a father who rejoiced that his son has being dead and be made alive again and he welcomed him home before even give his son a chance to apologize and could not wait to start the celebration, to give him a new life, life in abundance, the very best must be given to him at once. So he asked his servant to kill the fat calf (symbol of Christ is the lamb slain for the redemption of our sin), dressed his son with a robe of honor (the robe that cover our sin, Christ's righteous), the ring of inheritance (a symbol of power and authority), and a footwear of prestige (ready to serve Jesus Christ).

It is easy to identify with the youngest son that he is in need of healing and forgiveness but to realize that the one that stayed home and served his father, did all what required of him as a son, worked hard and fulfilled all his obligations is a sinner too.

The oldest son was lost while he was still home. When we look closely we realize how angry, resentful, unkind, envy, bitter, jealous toward his brother and could not enter to his father's house to share his joy.

"But he was angry and would not go in; therefore his father came out and pleaded with him" (Luke 16:28). Now once again we see the father's love for his oldest son are the same, he went out to him as he did with the youngest son, he long for him to enter the house and join the celebration but he cannot force him, in order for the oldest son to come in, he need to come with new attitude and understanding that the father's love is beyond comparisons.

Here we come to wonder!

Did he ever get persuaded by his father?
Did he ever reconcile with his brother?

In the Parable of the laborers (Matthew 20:1), we see the landowner give as much to the laborer who worked only one hour as to those who did worked all day. And that should make us realize that our God does not define His love by who comes first or last, He is a generous God, who loves all His children and expects His children to be so happy in His presence not envious with each other.

"I, the Lord, search the heart; I test the mind, even to give every man according to his way, and according to the fruit of his doings" (Jeremiah 17:10).

Would not it be wonderful to be able to make God smile by giving Him the chance to find you and by being a true son to Him but the question is do I believe in my heart that I am worth looking for? Or

Does little criticism make me angry?
Does little rejection make me depressed?
Does little praise raise my spirit?
Does little success excite me?
Do I still searching for more?
Do I keep leaving home away from my father?

For we have to remember that in order to be in our Father's house we must transformed to His image and choose not to live in the darkness, but choose to offer the same compassion that he has offered to us, choose to forgive other's offenses and choose to heal other's wounds. To be able to rejoice not because the problems of the world have been solved or all human pain and suffering have come to the end but because one of His children was dead and now he is alive, he was lost and now he has been found.

Father's Love
A love that is tender and kind
A love that is sacred and divine
A love that is the one I long for
A love that will bring my heart in tears
A love that will fill my heart
A love that never changes or warn out
A love that sacrificed His only Son for me
A love that strengthens me when I am weak
A love that makes me feel precious to Him
A love that teaches me to give all that I have
A love that is like the ocean which keeps growing
A love that will open my eyes to see His way
A love that always brings me down to my knees
A love that will never allow anyone to separate us from Him

May the Father's love cover you and lead you in His way that you may enjoy His presence in you and may someday allow you to inherit all the treasure that heaven can offer.

Written by
Nagwa Abdou