These first two words of The Lord's Prayer, as written in Matthew 6:9-11, evoke in me feelings so deep and strong that I find it hard to describe them. To be told that when I pray to God, I am praying to my father...

"Father" speaks to me of eternity. My own earthly parents were believers and I remember them with gratitude - warts and all! I realise that many of you haven't had this blessing of believing parents, but please accept these thoughts as they come through my own personal experiences. That my earthly father begat me, brought me up and set me on my feet for life can never be taken away...ever. Whenever I grieved him during my youth (and I certainly did), he remained my father.

I believe our Heavenly Father, by identifying us as his children, wants to have us know him better through our own earthly family experiences. As the tabernacle of the Torah is a shadow of the one in Heaven, so perhaps our earthly family experiences are to guide us to know better God's heart for us.

Who Our Father Is

While kayaking this week I asked two friends for their thoughts about the "Our Father" part of the Lord's Prayer. They went to Jesus' parable of Luke 15:11-32, commonly known as 'The Prodigal Son'. I often think of the story more as 'The Forgiving Father'. I see from this parable the picture of my Heavenly Father, who will not disown me when I turn back to him from foolish sinfulness - because we are family.

I myself am a father and recall two of my daughters once winning a race against some lads. The boys asked my girls how they did it. They simply answered "Our dad is Johnny Q!" as if this explained everything. Likewise, when asked how I get through difficult times, I am able to say that my Father is God Almighty, Lord of Angel Armies!

Being God's Children

In my Bible readings last week, I was struck afresh by Hebrews 12:5-13. Whilst it refers the readers back to a passage in Proverbs where an earthly father is giving guidance to his son, it also tells the readers that they are God's sons.

The similarity of God our Father with earthly fathers is drawn via the importance of a father's discipline. As a son, I grew up having the disciplined life that my earthly father taught me, at times quite painfully. Nevertheless, it has given me much comfort to know that this man loved and cared for me in a way that he reserved solely for me, my brother and sister. And we were the only ones that ever got to call him Dad. As a father I am likewise doing my best to give my five daughters as level a path for their feet (Heb 12:13) as I am able. To know God as Father comforts me that His love, care and discipline for me are the real thing and that I am truly adopted as His son.

But it's not just my Father. It's our Father. Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer firstly for groups of believers. My kayak buddies made a good point to me that this speaks of an equality of us believers in God's eyes. If the prayer were "Our God..." it might lead to a hierarchy, such as that one gets in a business set-up. But by the inference of us being God's children, having Him as our common Father, Jesus made it clear that we are one family...together!

Author: John Quinlan