The Perfect Father

I can still smell the damp air as we made our way down the shaky walkway of the marina. My dad walked beside me with his arms loaded down with fishing poles and tackle. The night was cool and the ground was still damp from rain earlier in the day, it was going to be a good night to fish my dad said. My dad loved fishing, and being only six at the time this is one of the favorite childhood memories I have of my dad.

I don't remember catching any fish myself this night but I know we caught some. There was a fish cleaning station at the marina where my dad would clean the fish before we left. I remember how horrified I was seeing my dad with a long knife cut the fish's head off. I remember my dad stopping and taking me off to the side when he saw me crying. He was gentle in explaining that what he did was natural and that the fish did't feel any pain. He went on and on about how it was the natural order of things and somehow in his fatherly act of kindness made me more comfortable with decapitating the helpless fish.

The good memories of my dad seem to stop at age eight when abruptly he vanishes from my life. My mom and dad eventually divorce and my dad remarried and started another family.

As one growing up fatherless I always had a misguided view of God as a “father.” My earthly father abandoned me at eight years old and that shaped early on my view of God. I felt that God was a distant, unapproachable, absent being who wasn’t all that interested in me.

It wasn’t until many years later that God began to show me just how wrong I was and how much He cared about me. When I truly surrendered my life to Christ, He began this reconstructing of things that were broken in my life in a way a loving father would. One of the greatest things is that He reconciled the relationship between me and my earthly father, healing the deep wounds of bitterness and unforgivness and giving me the opportunity to have the best possible relationship with him up until his passing. My whole perception of God was changed as he began working in a way that demonstrated his character as the perfect Father. One that would always be interested in me, who valued me and called me his son. One who would never abandon me or leave me to fend for myself.

Two things that God does best as a dad is watching and listening. He is not an absent God. He hears every cry, He hears our heart and mind. Every thought is distinctive in his ear and He knows us intimately. Like an eagle who knows their young’s cry, God knows us when we cry up to him. He is always listening with an inclined ear. We are the apple of his eye. He is always watching with intense focus on every detail of our life from our rising in the morning to the laying down our head, He even watches over us as we sleep. His gaze is forever on us. We are the twinkle in his eye, He delights in us and we are his joy.

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

I wonder what it would be like to hear God sing, what are the lyrics to his songs that he sings over us.

I can imagine the song He sings over me is possibly “You are wanted, you are loved and you are mine.”