Today is a day that we honor our Fathers and in our
reading from the New Testament we are reminded
that we also have a heavenly Father. It states that all
who have faith and are baptized in Christ are children
of God. Jesus himself teaches us to pray to God as
our Father.
What are we to understand about God and about our-
selves from this teaching? It seems that Jesus is talk-
ing about an ongoing relationship. Just as we have
ongoing contact and love and respect with those we
love here on earth God our Father wants to have an
ongoing and loving relationship with us.
Some of us have been lucky to have had very loving
and wise and dependable fathers. Some have had no
father and that leaves a big hole in a person’s life.
Some have had fathers who struggled with life and
their role as a father and who did well at some tasks
of parenting and not so well at others. Even very
good fathers have their human limits. But whatever
kind of father we have we can take courage and
comfort from knowing that our heavenly father has no
limits of love or patience or faithfulness to us even
though we may forget him or fail him.
Of course that does not mean that we always get our
way or what we want just as we do not always get our
way from our earthly father. And there will be some
trials and pain in this life that cannot be avoided. But
we will not face these alone. Our Father is always
present whether we see him immediately or not.
The other thing to remember is that God does not
play favorites. He loves each of his children with per-
fect love and utter devotion.