A Glimpse of God the Father

My first son, Joseph, gave me the most incredible gift ever, the gift of being a father. One of the best parts of this gift has been coming to a deeper understanding of what God the Father must be like. There are a couple of moments in my son’s short life that God has used to reveal how he is as our Father.

One such moment happened when we first took Joseph to a water splash pad at a local park. When we arrived, he was so excited that he didn’t know what to do with himself. He started moaning and grunting as he tried to contain his excitement of seeing and touching the water spray forth from the ground. What a joy it was, as his father, to see him so excited about something, to see him find such joy in a simple thing. After we left, for the next couple of weeks, all I kept thinking about was when I could find time to take him back to that splash pad. He had so much fun, and all I wanted to do was take him back.

How often do we think that God is neutral toward the things we find joy in, such as sports, games, and hobbies, and only excited when we do "spiritual" things like go to Mass or pray? Of course, God loves it when we converse with him in prayer and worship him in Mass, but God is a good Father, and as a good Father, he takes joy in what we do, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. Fathers love watching their children do the things they love.

Another moment happened when my wife brought Joseph to my work one day. They came into my office as I was finishing up a Zoom meeting, and I was sitting at my desk with my hands crossed as I listened to someone talk on the computer screen. Joseph immediately came right over to me and sat on my lap, looked up at me, then looked at the computer, and immediately crossed his hands to act like a big man himself in a meeting. He wanted to be like his dad, and that brought me such great joy.

Often, we do things in an attempt to imitate Jesus. Maybe we can try to evangelize and spread our faith to those around us. But what tends to happen is that we feel clunky or awkward, then feel embarrassed looking back on it, or overanalyze how we did and how we could have done better. Yet we forget a simple fact: we were trying to imitate Jesus, and surely that makes God smile. Regardless of how well we did, the very act of trying to imitate Jesus and be like him must bring God such great joy. God is a good Father, and good fathers can’t help but smile when their children try to imitate them.

Knowing God as a good Father is at the very heart of life and why we were created. I think one of the devil’s main tactics is to distract us from this reality, to keep us from realizing it and thinking about it. How sad it is that so many people associate Christianity with the cultural hot topic issues and never get to the heart of Christianity: that God is a good Father who loves us and rejoices in us. When you spend time meditating on God as a good Father, when you spend time just being in a loving relationship with God the Father, so many of the problems that we get stressed and concerned about seem to just fade away. Surely the devil will have us think about anything, no matter how good that idea or cause is, as long as that keeps us from thinking about God as a good Father.