GOD THE FATHER

Do you ever cringe at a word or phrase in church? I know I do; I cringe at the start of the Lord’s Prayer when we say “Our Father.”

I seriously wish Jesus had said something like “our eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent Godhead” because that removes God from a messy family relationship.  Not all Christians have an easy relationship with their earthly fathers and within the church universal there are Christians who have been abused by their fathers, abandoned by their fathers or rejected by their fathers.  How do those, my brothers and sisters in Christ, feel about saying “Our Father.”? What picture does it bring up for them?

If we want to understand what Jesus meant we must understand what being a father meant in first centaury Palestine; in particular what they thought the biological relationship between a father and child.  While they would have expected a father to provide and care for his children (although, as I pointed out above, this doesn’t always happen) they would also have regarded the children as a continuation of the father.  They believed the father placed the seed in his wife and the child grew from that with no biological input from the mother!  Now this seems crazy to us today with our understanding of biology and genetics but it is part of the picture of fatherhood that would have been in the minds of Jesus’ listeners (and probably Jesus himself.)

When we look at it this way we find “Our Father” not only confirming a God who cares and provides for us but also a God who loves us so much He made us in His image!  Made us to be creative as He is creative and to be loving as He is Love.

So next time you say the Lord’s Prayer take a quick moment to reflect on the God who loves you so much He made you in His image.

God's Love

The other night it was rather warm so we opened the Velux window in our bedroom to let in a breeze. As a result I could see some stars as I lay in bed and the following thought went through my head.

As I contemplated how far away those stars are (were?) and how vast the universe must be I found my self thinking about the God who made it all. It was then that I realised that not only would God have become man and suffered for each and every one of us but that he loves us all so much that even if we were the only person who was going to exist he would still have made this vast universe just so he could love us.

Wonderful isn't it.

Yesterday I went to Work

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:45 and didn't get back to sleep properly because I was worried; worried because I was going to work. Normally going to work isn't a big deal but yesterday was my first day back at work since early November when I had some form of mental breakdown. Going back to work was one of the big steps back to normality and I was worried: worried about how my colleagues would react and worried about how I would react.

Of course it went OK; most of the things we worry about never happen anyway. We had moved office while I was off so I spent part of the day unpacking 3 crates and working out how to fit it all into one desk, a lot of time clearing some of the 979 (approx) unread e-mails and a short time talking to my boss. All in all it was a gentle, stress free day and yet I had been worried about it.

Was I right to worry? I don't know. But what I do know is that God was with me and I was supported by a lot of prayer and without them I would have struggled.

When I was first ill I thought work was one of the main causes of my situation but I have now come to see that most of my work stress was self induced. It wasn't the work that was wrong but my reaction to it. A reaction born out of situations that have existed from as long ago as my childhood. An understandable but wrong reaction.

It's still early in my journey back to normality (whatever that is) and I'm only working part time at the moment but the great thing is that I'm on that journey.

When I started this blog one of the subjects I said I was going to cover was living with disability. At the time I defined that as being 'dyslexic with knackered lungs' but I now realise that my biggest disability is living with depression. Of course I'm still living with lung disease and dyslexia but it's the depression that has the biggest effect on me and, more importantly, those around me. I hope that in my future posts I will be able to shed some light on what it is like to be a Christian living with depression.