By John Thiel, mp3

Scripture reading: Psalm 103:13 Like as a father pitieth [his] children, [so] the LORD pitieth them that fear him. 14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we [are] dust.

There is a story that is told of an evangelist who tried to evangelize the young street children of a large American city. These rugged young people needed to know that God is a wonderful person; and as the evangelist was trying to communicate to them what God was like, he said, He is just like a father. Then one of those young ruffians turned around and said to him, If He’s anything like my dad, I don’t want to know Him!

What is your impression of father? In this world of sin we have two images of father. One is a harsh, austere, cruel dictator telling me what I have to do, and what I don’t want to do I have to do, and all the like – a man who creates fear inside of a child. Then there is another class of father, the one who is like an indulgent sugar-daddy that lets the children have everything they want, and they don’t know where they stand, whether he loves them or not, because he never corrects them. These are the two kinds of character of father – one engendering fear and hate in the child, and the other leaving a child without knowing whether his daddy loves him because he never corrects him anyway. Read the rest of this entry →