Father vs Lover

This is a tricky subject, and can't say I've ever quite got to the bottom of it. Since letting go of religion and the obsession of assuming the bible is the answer to everything, I've come to some interesting conclusions that work for me - so far!

The concept of God as our father is well grounded in scripture, particularly by Jesus. There's no disputing the image of a perfect father who loves us unconditionally, and will bring every person to the knowledge of their completion in him.

But there is also the concept of God as a lover woven through scripture as well. It's more subtle but is intrinsic to the concept of the "bride of Christ".

These days I don't quote verses to prove a point. I might dig around to get a feel for a subject, but Christ in me is my guide. So here's the thing that has gurgled around the back of my brain for some time. A perfect father is awesome, can't argue with that so I'm not dissing that aspect of God at all. But I am taking it a step further.

I think the idea of the Bride hints at a level of union and oneness with God that goes way beyond any Father/child relationship. Our personal romantic relationships go way deeper than parental ones. There is a softness, romance, mutual adoration and intimacy that supersedes all other relationships. We leave our parental relationships to unite with another person in way that is impossible with our parents.

Even though Jesus talked about his father, and there are things like the prodigal son, which are beautiful metaphors, he hinted at something deeper many times as well - the father and I are one etc.

Paul and John talked a lot more about an intimacy that you would never describe as fatherly. In fact, father implies separation - sure, a loving father who is besotted with his children, but never the less, separate.

Now that we are one with God in every sense, that father/mother model has been outgrown. We are now old enough, as it were, to be lovers. To enter a whole new realm of love. A unity and oneness with all he is and all he has created (and expressed toward each other) that surpasses the need for the type self deprecation we associate with an authority figure (no matter how benign they may be).

The implications of this have been creeping up on me and creating a whole new sense of who God is and how I was created to relate to him. We are equals!! Of course, he is completely "omni" everything and I'm not like him in that sense, but he wants me as an equal, like a lover, no secrets, everything shared, neither lording it over the other. Just a beautiful oneness built on God's initiated passion that has drawn me into his arms.

Dare I also suggest that this surpasses all concepts of gender, God being completely female and completely male, thus completing us on every level no matter what our gender/sexuality is (although this is another huge topic!).

Perhaps the whole concept of lover is really what Jesus meant by "sending the Holy Spirit to live in us". There is a huge realm opening up for me that transcends culture/religion/scripture/tradition and all the bondage those things create, and frees me to to embrace Holy Spirit.

I've always thought that addressing God as Father just never really expressed it right. I'd try Jesus or Spirit or Lord or whatever, but nothing does the job. I'm tempted to call him Lover! No more "Father God I beseech you to pour out your blessings, blah, blah". Now its just "Hey Lover, what are you doing, can I help, or do you just want to hang out, maybe we could make love!!"

Christianity is dead - long live Jesus

Maybe I'm just getting tired and cynical, or maybe I'm really feeling God's heart - not sure...

As I troll the interwebs, looking at the goings on in christendom, I start to feel like its all a farce. All the bickering, the twisted angry people spouting twisted angry doctrines about a twisted angry God. Fighting each other over things that don't matter, swallowing stupidity hook line and sinker. Gullibly believing stuff just because it was how their favourite leaders teach it, or its just the traditions they have been handed down.

Then there's all the political crap that has been wrapped in christian words, supposedly to make godly nations, and supposedly bringing his blessing on the land. And all the money grabbing ministries, and all the "support Israel or be damned" groups.

I look at all this and think, what a mess! Is there actually any truth in this whatsoever? The bible is little use in sorting out the mess because that's the very thing that starts half the problems anyway. For me christianity is dead. Its a corpse that won't lie down because people keep kicking it around, propping it up and putting makeup on it in the vain hope that it will keep going.

But somewhere outside of all that is the light of Jesus. I think the light went out in christainity a long time ago. There are however lights shining in individuals who quietly get on with bringing Gods heart to a starving needy world. And many aren't in the church, and many aren't "christians" (gasp). But they bring Fathers love to all they touch. They bring the miracle of what Jesus did for all mankind to life in all they are and do, and spread that miracle to all around them.

That light also flickers in some of us, and struggles to burn through the walls of christianity, to break free into the world. It is held back by the very religion that tried to embrace it, but ended up smothering it to death.

For those of us who nurture our precious unity with God, who see that flame in others and want nothing more than to blow life into it, can we stand together? Can we leave the rotting putrid corpse of christendom for the vultures, walk away from it, and let Jesus shine? Let his unconditional love for everyone be our sole justification for all we are and do?

I could! I could just walk away from it all and leave it for the fires of Gehenna.

Rain

This is a beautiful analogy from Rob Bell.
Father's love is so much better then we can ever imagine!

Modern Gospel

~ Jeff Turner - Sound Of Awakening

 Here's the modern 'gospel' in a nutshell:

God the Father had been imbibing the wine of his own fury for around four millennia, and finally, due to his weak constitution, he found himself spiralling into an angry, drunken rage! Having had one too many cups of wrath to drink, the father began to make his way up stairs towards junior, the apparent 'object of his wrath' and the cause of all of his woes. But thanks be to...god...big brother Jesus was on alert, and upon hearing daddy's heavy, drunken feet trudging up the steps, burst out of his room and intercepted him. Big brother endured blow after blow after blow from his enraged parental unit until finally, daddy's wrath had been fully vented. As though emerging from a trance, suddenly, the father found himself sober. He turns around to behold the tear stained face of his youngest, and now hysterical, son. Having vented all of his wrath on his eldest, daddy now looks at junior and exclaims, "No worries son! We're cool now! I beat big brother in your place! I've gotten all of the fight out of me and now we can be buds! Seriously. You can trust me son."

An over simplification? Yes.

A still accurate portrayal? Yes.

Good News? Heck no.

How could one ever feel comfortable in the presence of a 'father' who needed to maim and kill another in order to keep him from doing the same to you? Just as a child can never fully relax and be at ease in the presence of an alcoholic father, no believer can ever be truly at rest with such a notion of God lodged between their ears. What if the ubiquitous unrest and anxiety that plagues humanity can be blamed almost entirely on an interpretation of God the Father that makes Him look more like a Furor than a father? More like a Hitler than a healer? What if even our dysfunctional 'christian' families are simply mirror images of our own misinterpretation of God's dealings with men? What if our brokenness and bankruptcy is the byproduct of our toxic folklore concerning the Father of our spirits? I think most of us can agree that the 'what if?' isn't even necessary, we all know it's true.

The crying need of the hour is for the Church to recapture the image of the Father. We need sons who have learned to behold Him as He is and who are then able to express and project that image to a broken and bleeding humanity. Are you out there? Have you seen Him? Have you heard His voice? Have you tasted His sweetness? Then what are you waiting on? Let your tongue be untied! Let your voice be as clear and sharp as glass! Let your pace be swift and intentional! Run and find the broken wherever they lay, and declare to them the heart of the Father who has saved them!

This is real. Lives are at stake. God is Love.