I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. John 17:6. NIV
Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus replied to him “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
Indeed it is always enough to see the Father! There is no heart so full as the Father’s, no heart so kind, so generous! If one has a good earthly father, one knows a hinting of that vast caring, the generosity, the deep affection. The craving of every desperate heart, to find that affectionate center, to sense and know one so deeply in love with us. There is no failure, no deficiency that would turn him away or cool down his love!
That is the place of fathers, meant to be a reflection of such heavenly love, and when it works, it works brilliantly. Our hearts feel so at home laying upon his breast, so deeply loved, so vastly swept up in affection. He cares, he provides, he strives for all benevolence in our lives. There is nothing more to him than what he can do on our behalf. How can he care more? It occupies all his consciousness. How can he help, how can he teach, how can he provide? How can he better equip us for all things that may come our way?
And the vast affection! The tender caring that would endure any pain for us, that would endure any of our pain if he could! The heart so deeply and permanently committed to us. The heart that would wrap us and protect us and endure any shame for us.
For those whose earthly father failed them, who betrayed that sacred trust, who did not reflect the heavenly image they were shaped after, how much more is the revealing for you. For God, who is a father to the fatherless, is a father of perfect affection to those who have known so little. His heart, his affection, is an ocean of unlimited depth – it cannot be plumbed! It is a flame of intense desire, that would burn through all that would obstruct or obscure that perfect image.
He will burn through the failings of my own earthly father, whatever shadow was left on my heart from his faltering love, he will replace that flawed likeness. And where my earthly father reflected love, he will enhance and refine that remembrance, as an image of deep, enduring and overwhelming love, that springs like a well of healing and living water. It satisfies as none can, a water that fills, upon which I will never thirst again. Those fatherly arms enfold me, they will never let go, as the heavenly glow of his vast affectionate heart immerses me. I am loved, and there is simply nothing else.
O radiant love, fatherly love, hold me, embrace me, engulf me in the eternal affection. Wash through me with your liquid love, dissolve away every residue of the lie I believed, every false image I have of you. Show me the Father again, reveal the pure light of love, unfailing, never ending, deeply affectionate, deeply desirous of me, all failings forgiven and washed aside. It would be enough, it is always enough!
© 2020 James Gorham