Knowing the Heart of the Father: Four Experiences with God That Will Change Your Life

YOUR BIRTHRIGHT

Biblical Christianity assumes that four profoundly emotional, deeply affecting, heart-changing, and transformative experiences exist. It assumes that these experiences are the pattern for every believer. The experiences are not mystical—you do not have to wear sackcloth, chant, breathe rhythmically, or arrange your furniture in a certain way. But they are profoundly spiritual.

In these pages, we will explore these experiences and see what the Bible tells us about how to obtain them. Keep this in mind—if you are a Christian, they are your birthright.

Any basement in Buffalo, New York, feels damp and smells musty. My parents’ basement was no exception. As basements go it was small, the size of a large bedroom. I was there to clean it out. Throw out the useless. Keep the memorable and the useful.

Two weeks before, Dad had died of a heart attack in the kitchen at the top of the basement stairs. The funeral was over, and Mom was going to live with my wife, Carol, and me. My brother and I were there to make that happen. We had a rental truck, directions to the dump, and a lot of black plastic bags. The truck was half-filled.

I opened the cedar chest in the basement and started rummaging. I found a small black suit made out of very heavy cloth. That must have been the suit my dad was married in, during the Depression, in a living room in a town in Pennsylvania. I marveled at its size. When he got married, Dad was a coal miner. He must have been skinny and all muscle then, because in the years that I knew him this suit would never have fit. It landed in the black plastic bag.

The Gap That Needed to Be Filled

But under the suit was a woman’s black coat. It was the coat! I would have recognized it anywhere. I ran my hand over the pattern on the back and on the arm…that was what I remembered. The texture of the fabric was actually sewn black threads that were bunched together to create a rough surface. At the end of each sleeve was a cuff of fake fur two or three inches wide.

Thirty-five years before was the last time I remembered touching that coat. My hand had touched its fabric as I held my mother’s hand. We had lived in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, then, a small suburb of Scranton. The day I touched the coat was the night the Susquehanna River flooded. I was three years old. Mom and the three of us younger boys were out on the porch watching the water flow by our house. It came to the top step below the porch, so the basement must have been flooded. I watched as my father and oldest brother walked toward the house in hip boots and climbed up to the porch.

Mom was holding my hand. As she held it, I could feel the brush of the fur against my arm, and my fingers would rub against the rough texture of her coat’s fabric. It was magical. Up to the time I was six years of age, this was the only time I could remember holding her hand. Watching the river flood was interesting—holding her hand was wonderful.

During those years she was reclusive and depressed. My father was an alcoholic, and three years before, my only sister had died of sugar diabetes at the age of nine. Mom often told us that Dad was drunk on the train that brought my sister’s body back to our home in Pennsylvania. She had three boys six and younger underfoot. For weeks on end she would disappear into the bedroom upstairs, and what we remember being told was that she was sick. I can remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs hoping to see her.

Everything about that event rushed back into my mind. Not because of the flood or the adventure, but because of those moments of hand-holding. The fake fur and the fabric were stamped into my memory because they had surrounded her hand. The only value that long period of deprivation of Mom’s physical touch had was this: When touch actually occurred that night, it could be perfectly recalled 35 years later. The entire experience was brought back by the magical coat.

It too went into the plastic bag. The coat was not what I wanted.

After deprivation, when connection occurs, it is unforgettable. The surroundings, every detail—even the feel of clothing—become magical. That magical sense of connection comes from our origins. Not our family origins but the deeper origins…from long ago, from God.

The magical sense of connection first existed among the members of the Trinity. To be within the circle of their relationships was to exist in delight. When a person is made in the image of God, as all are, that individual is made for the delight of connection and relationship. Without it, life becomes figuratively—and finally literally—hell.

Sadly, for many of us, deprivation has been a reality. So when connection occurs, it is almost druglike. It is magic.

Getting to Know the Non-abandoning God

Neglect is an unseen experience. Abuse usually makes itself obvious, but neglect goes unnoticed. Sadly, our culture is submerged in neglect and relational abandonment. A mounting wave of psychological and spiritual damage has been flowing from the deterioration of family life. The experiences of being abandoned by parents, ignored by caregivers, or divorced from one’s spouse makes loneliness the norm and makes isolation comfortable. Not surprisingly, for many people relationships have become nerve-racking.

Neglect Is Often Invisible

Chris is a nice man and a faithful husband. But not too long into marriage, his wife, Joanna, noticed something odd. Chris would actually freeze—an absent and sometimes distressed expression would come across his face—when she was affectionate. Her husband did not know what to do with affection. He could give it (sometimes mechanically), but he could receive it only with discomfort. Also oddly, Chris hardly ever mentioned his parents. He did not run them down—he just seemed to act as if they did not exist, as if he’d been hatched or something. Chris was a product of emotional and physical neglect. But he could not remember the experience of being neglected. Like the oxygen he breathed when he was a child, the neglect also went unnoticed.

The God of the Bible does not participate in the culture of neglect, and neglect is something He will never be accused of. At the heart of the four great experiences is this: God is worth knowing because He sincerely believes we also are worth knowing. And of course He is worth knowing because of who He is.

Part 1 of this book is going to show that He is worth knowing because He is a Father—but a Father who is radically different from any human father we have ever met.

1

WHAT IS THIS NEW FATHER LIKE?

It was indeed a strange meal. The James family had invited me over. I had heard that Marilyn, the wife, was a great cook, and that everybody was friendly and charming. As we all sat down around the table, though, Mrs. James announced that if you wanted to say anything to her husband, you could talk to her and her son. The husband, Patrick, simply sat there and smiled and nodded. I then made the mistake of asking what Patrick did. His son instantly replied, Well, we’re not sure, but anything a father is supposed to do around here, I do.

Needless to say the meal was confusing. The father just kept smiling, almost inanely, and the mother and son kept explaining his emotions, thoughts, and desires. Patrick was a complete nonentity who was being supported and defined by the other two.

In one sense, that is what happens at church. Churches often have a nebulous figure called God the Father—and it appears He has nothing to do. The Son does it all. The Father is among the jobless, a distant unemployed figure. This is not what the Bible teaches, but often it’s how churches present Him.

Sometimes the Father is represented as a malevolent figure. He is angry at humanity over its sin, but the Son has been able to appease His outrage by dying a cruel death. The Father ends up appearing to be threatening and dangerous, as if the Son and the Spirit have to restrain Him from going on a binge of destruction. But whether He is completely nebulous or dangerously angry, He is not involved.

This view creates a monumental problem, because the four great experiences are dependent on the role of God the Father, and they revolve around His Person. If He is not at the center of those experiences, they have very little meaning.

Life with a Jobless Father

If a believer is convinced that God the Father is essentially uninvolved and takes no initiative, several strange and unbiblical views can result that affect our daily thinking and behavior. Let’s take a look at some representative samples.

The Heavenly Hypochondriac

As Maria and Jon walked along, a long black chain stretching into the heavens traveled a foot or so behind them. The chain was several inches thick, and it moved when they moved, stopped when they stopped—always a foot or so behind.

The pair was arguing. Maria blurted out, Jon, I really resent what you did! I hate you! She then turned, grabbed hold of the chain with both hands, and yanked on it. A yelp of pain came from the sky, not quite as loud as thunder, but clear and strong enough to be heard.

You see, the chain went straight from behind the couple through the sky, through the universe, and all the way to heaven, and it was tied to the right ankle of God. Every time Jon or Maria did something wrong, one or the other would jerk on the chain, and God would yelp.

It also worked the other way if either of them did something good. For example, after Maria told Jon she resented him, he apologized, and she accepted his apology and forgave him. At that point Jon turned around and gently pulled on the black chain. A flash of light broke through the sky, and for a second the shape of a happy face appeared. God in heaven smiled.

Many religious people sincerely believe they can jerk God around. They would never say that aloud, but that is what their instincts tell them. Heaven’s mood depends upon them: They do well, heaven smiles; they sin, the heart of God is stabbed with pain. Their God is a religious hypochondriac who is always holding His chest waiting for the next big sin (perhaps even The Big One). Their God is busy feeling all the ills of the world.

Is God the Father fixated on our conduct? Does our behavior determine His happiness? Is He uninvolved, other than wringing His hands and whimpering over what we do? Many people will say, Of course not! but what goes on in their conscience and emotions belies that.

The Katrina Effect

What we just looked at is one extreme. The opposite is what I call the Katrina effect. When New Orleans was flooded, thousands of people fled to the roofs of their homes. As rescuers and TV people flew over them, the stranded families would wave and wave for attention. As the helicopters got closer and closer, as the newspeople filmed them, the people kept on gesturing and waving. It appeared to TV viewers that the people in danger did not believe the helicopters really noticed them. They had to keep on waving in order to keep on being seen.

Some religious and Christian individuals live and act like God has an attention deficit. He’s a God with ADD. If they keep on waving (their religious activity), they might get His attention—and if they wave harder, they might keep His attention. Is that how heaven works? Do we need to keep working hard to capture God the Father’s interest?

We’re Just Human Targets

Concern about God’s involvement with us was also a consuming issue for Job in the Old Testament. Satan, God’s opponent,* had been permitted to put Job through an incredible trial. Job had lost his children, his wealth, his reputation, and his health. His wife had lapsed into bitterness, and he had fallen into despair.

[*Satan, or the Satan, is actually a Hebrew word meaning opponent. Usually it referred to an opponent in a lawsuit.]

The book of Job tells how Job came to terms with the disaster. It is an examination of the ways of God, and a meditation on God’s level of involvement. In the seventh chapter, Job felt that God was taking him too seriously and was watching him too carefully. His God did not have ADD, but MAD, Manic Attention Disorder, and Job felt he did not deserve the attention:

What is man that You make him great,

and that You place your heart upon him?

And as a result, You pay attention to him every morning.

And every moment You are continually testing him.

How come You will not turn your gaze from me? You won’t

relax and let go of me until I swallow my spit [I die].

Have I sinned? What have I done to You? O Continual

Watcher of men!

—7:17-20*

[* The Bible translations used throughout the book are my own. They are true to the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible. My desire is to give a rich and expanded but accurate translation of what God has to say through His Word.]

Job was preoccupied with the attention that God was giving him. He did not like it—so much so that he looked forward to death, when it would stop. He felt he was a human target for God, and not a friend.

What Is This Father Really Like?

The four great experiences increase in spiritual value as we value the Father more. Therefore, we have to deal with faulty beliefs about Him before we talk about the experiences. Obviously my stories about the James family, Maria and Jon, and the ADD and MAD views of God present a problem or two.

If we start by considering the story about Patrick, the father without a role, this will lead us to biblical ways to think about the Father. That in turn will help us deal with the other problem beliefs about Him.

As indicated in the James family illustration, much confusion about the Persons, roles, and relationships of the Trinity exists in the conservative Evangelical churches. If you walk into many churches, hear a Christian referring to God, and then ask, Who do you mean? the answers may well be intriguing:

I am referring to God and that’s all.

I am referring to all of them.

Why does it matter?

The four great experiences have as their linchpin, or critical Person, God the Father, so who we mean by God matters an awful lot. Let us see who He is.

The Driving Force Behind the Drama and Romance of Redemption

Naturally, all believers assume at least intellectually that they are loved by Jesus Christ. But this love on the part of the Son is not what the New Testament sees as the driving force behind redemption—God’s rescue of His own. Rather, it is the Father’s love that is driving the rescue. The Father’s love sent Christ. This love is expressed in that most familiar of verses from the Gospel of John:

God had such a delighted passion for the people of the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, in order that every particular person believing in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the people of the world should be saved through Him (John 3:16-17).

What has to be noted carefully is that the Son is the agent for the Father’s love. At the heart of the universe is a Father’s heart. Those who place Jesus Christ at the center of their spiritual experience must remember that they would have no experience of the love of Christ without the previous decision—based in love—of God the Father to send the Son. We would also not have the experience of the Spirit of God without the Father, for it is the Father who sent the Spirit in harmony with the Son’s desires. Jesus spoke of the Father sending the Spirit, again in the Gospel of John:

I myself will ask the Father, and He will give you another similar Helper, that He may be with you forever (John 14:16).

The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name [authority], that One will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you (John 14:26).

What we have here is a vastly important truth: The Father is the center of the plan of redemption, or the rescue of humanity. He is not an add-on, nor is He secondary. He is the Primary One, the One who initiated the sending of the Son and the Spirit.

The Center of Eternal Life

Eternal life is also dependent on God the Father. Jesus, the evening before the crucifixion, prayed to the Father, giving a clear definition:

This is eternal life, that they may personally know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3).

A stranger cannot create a deep and profound relationship with us. The text in John 17 is assuming that the experience of eternal life cascades forth from the fountain of relationship with the Father. Eternal life is not a gift-boxed gem we put on a finger. Instead, it is the relationship we have with the Father through the Son.

The Source of All Blessing

The Father sent the Son not only to rescue humanity, but also to secure again the blessing given in Genesis 1.

God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Genesis 1:28).

This blessing was thwarted by the rebellion of Adam and Eve. So God the Father sent the Son to reestablish it. But because of the greatness of the Father’s love and the greatness of who Christ is, the new blessing touched not only the earth but extended to God’s presence in heaven. He is the source of all blessing.

Blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every variety of spiritual blessing in the upper heavenlies in Christ, in harmony with that He chose us in relationship to Himself before the foundation of the world, in order that we should be holy and blameless before Him in the passionate delight of love (Ephesians 1:3-4).

The Father is the One who has established the blessings for us that come through Christ. Notice that not only did the Father bless us, but He chose us for Himself and He wants us to be holy, blameless, and loved.

The One We Pray To

The relationship with the Father is crucial in the New Testament, including in the matter of prayer. Almost always, He is the object of prayer. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus taught His disciples to pray to God the Father, and to pray to sanctify the Father’s Name or reputation and works (Matthew 6:9). Later, in the great chapters of John 13–17, Jesus spoke of the many new and wonderful spiritual realities that would be ours because of His death, burial, and resurrection. One of those is a new access in prayer to the Father. Jesus gave the disciples the privilege of asking in His Name:

Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, that