A Dead Beat Dad!

I recently was having dinner with a friend who lost his faith in the God of the Bible, as it was presented to him, and in a belief God even exists. He became emotional as we spoke and he said with anger, “I don’t want to worship a dead beat dad! If this God loves me one second and then the second after I die punishes me with eternal fire for not understanding him correctly, then I want to spend eternity anywhere but with this God. That’s a dead beat dad and humans are better than this God.” My friend correctly chose to reject this vision of God and I was glad that he chose to.

Jesus invites us into a timeless story that has helped me believe that God is not the deadbeat dad my friend was justly angry about. This story has been called “The Prodigal Son, “ and you can read about it in the book of Luke, chapter 15. The God character in this story is full of compassion, love, restoration and good will towards his selfish son. If Jesus had a message, it was that the religious people where the dead beats and his father is the hero of love, compassion, and redemption. I have often pleaded with God in prayer that he would help me believe he is the amazing Father of this Jesus story. I want to believe, but there have been countless people saying God is far worse, and sadly there words took root in my heart. I’m in the process with my friend, rejecting the story of a trivial and tribal God who is punitive. I also have herd the call in my heart beyond the rejection, its a call to a loving and trustworthy presence. I hope we all can receive the Abba of Jesus, the vision of his father, the perfect loving father. We all are learning to trust the Abba of Jesus and with my friend to reject of the old law of Moses, the god of the angry preacher, the god of the fundamentalist that demands blood, and the god of our crooked imagination. In the story Jesus tells he says of the father, “But while he was a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him: he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”