A Father’s Love
Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived with his father in a cabin in the woods. The boy had no brothers or sisters because his mother had died while giving birth to him, and his father had never remarried. The father loved his son very, very much, and of course, this love was returned by the boy. Even though the father missed his wife, and the boy missed having a mother or brothers and sisters, they lived a happy life in the woods. The father taught the boy how to canoe, how to find his way in the woods, how to live off the land. The boy, of course, cherished the time with his dad, and tried to be just like his father.
Every morning, the father would wake up his son, make breakfast for him, and send him off to school. School was about a mile away, and the boy was old enough to walk to and from school by himself. He and his father had walked the path through the woods, across the meadow and into town to the small school for years, so the boy knew the way. The town was very small, and everyone knew everyone else, so the father wasn’t worried about the boy’s safety, either.
One afternoon, however, the father noticed that his son was much later than usual getting home. At first, the father thought the boy must have stopped at the creek to catch a fish, or perhaps he became distracted following a deer through the woods. As the hour grew later and later, however, and as the evening shadows grew longer and longer, the father grew more and more worried about his son. Eventually, the father could no longer deny that something was wrong. He grabbed his hardwood walking stick, put on his heavy work boots, donned his canvas jacket, and set out into the woods to search for his son.
For hours, he walked through the woods, calling out his son’s name. The sun had long since set, and the father had all but given up hope, when he heard his son’s voice, weakly calling back to him. He raced to his son’s side, and a terrible rage filled him. His son lay on the ground, one eye blackened, his nose bloody, his coat, boots and backpack stolen. “Son, what happened to you?” he asked.
“I met a man in the woods,” his son replied, “who told me that he knew a different path home. I followed him, and when we were deep in the woods, he beat me up and stole my things,” the boy replied, feeling very ashamed at having been tricked, and at having been beaten up. “I don’t deserve to be your son. You wouldn’t have been fooled, and you could have beat up the man if he had tried to rob you.”
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This story is an allegory. The father, of course, is God. The man in the woods, of course, is the devil, and all of who have ever lived in this world are, equally of course, the boy.
My question, therefore is this: if in this story, you were the father, and this had happened to your children, how would you react? Would you drag your child home by the ear and beat him for his foolishness and weakness, or would you take your son home, tend to his wounds, call a dear friend or family member to look after him, and set off into the woods to find the man who harmed your child and bring him to justice? I can’t answer for anyone but myself, but I would be filled with compassion for my child, and rage towards the person who had hurt my child. In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” In other words, earthly mothers and fathers, even though we often are guided by fear, jealousy, anger or other passions that are not of God, are still good and loving to our children, and since that is the case, should we not expect God, who is entirely holy and good, to treat His own children – us – even better than we treat our own children? Of course we should!
Yet many Christians view God as the punisher with the big stick who is waiting for us to slip out of line so He can beat us back into submission. I maintain that this view of God is not Biblical, nor is it an accurate representation of Him. 2nd Peter 3:9 says, “…[the Lord] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentence” (emphasis mine). God’s desire is not to punish His children but rather to be reconciled with them! This is echoed in what is arguably the most well-known verse in the Bible, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but should have everlasting life.”
Bill Johnson tells the story of having someone speak to him after service one Sunday, and asking, “Bill, haven’t you heard of the wrath of God?” to which he replied, “Sure! I’m just glad He isn’t mad at me!” This is a really big deal. GOD ISN’T MAD AT ME!, and He isn’t mad at YOU, either!
In the story above, the father isn’t mad at the son. He is mad at the man who tricked, beat and robbed his son. God isn’t mad at you because the devil has tricked you and beaten you up. He’s mad at the devil for abusing you in that way. God is love, and God is good – all the time. If you’ve ever violated God’s covenant, pick yourself back up. Repent – which literally means “turn away”, so turn away from the path that led to your fall, and GET ON A BETTER PATH! – and return to God. He isn’t mad at you; He is jealous for you, because He knows what the devil wants to do to you if you follow his path instead of God’s path. He will bring you back into His house, because He loves you, more than you will ever know.
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Picking the boy up in his arms, the father carried the boy to his uncle’s house, where the father, the uncle and the uncle’s family treated the boy’s wounds and put him to bed. After the boy fell asleep, the father and the uncle then set out into the woods, determined to find the man who had abused the boy. It took an hour, but they eventually found the thief, hiding in a cave next to a camp fire. The father and the uncle overpowered the thief, dragged him out of the cave, through the woods and back to the small town, where the sheriff threw the wretch into the smallest, coldest, darkest cell in the jail. The father then returned to the uncle’s house, laid on the floor next to the boy’s bed and slept there until much later the next morning when the boy awoke. Seeing all of his possessions on the floor near the bed, the boy asked how they had been returned. The father just smiled, but the uncle’s wife, the boy’s aunt told how the father and the uncle had caught the thief and hauled him to jail.
Never again did the boy doubt the father’s love for him.
