Gold Nugget 259 - A Father Still
The strongest ties we know of are in our human relationships; they are images of the Divine love. Only an artificial theology has made the rectoral character of God override the paternal.
Think you that on some wild Christmas, amid home’s most festive scenes, with the children and the children’s children about him, that father, whose hair is whiter than the winter snow, can forget the prodigal? With the ruddy fire-glow around him, and the yule logs piled high, his mind wanders over the bleak and barren moorland of the outside world; and one faint knock at the portal, one weary step, one quivering lip, brings more music to his heart than the tabret and the dance. He knows all about the squandered wealth, the profligate life, the reckless pilgrimage of vanity. But his kindness cannot depart from him, for he is a father still.
I claim for God the very amplest application of that analogy. … God gave such tension and tenderness to the human heart to make our fatherhood a parable of his own!
Life has been full of mercy to us all. Homes have been revisited, friends have been restored, love has been consummated, new homes have been set up, accident has been averted, health has been restored, deliverance has been vouchsafed, affliction has been sanctified, and religious faith has in some cases been renewed and restored.
Most wonderful of all is this. We have lived through seasons in which subtle temptations have had their enchanter’s wand broken, and difficulties in our Christian faith have been removed. True, indeed, it is that to some these words would mean nothing – would, perhaps, raise a smile of condescending pity for those of us who still believe in a God at all. Some there are who wonder at the worship which rises above “the stream of tendency,” or the laws of evolution, to the Fountain of Life and Power which fills the universe with life and joy …
Looking back, then, and taking a review of life preserved and life sustained, of friends given or restored, of love cemented and consecrated, of faith purified and elevated, must not our seal be set afresh to the truth of the words, “My kindness shall not depart from thee”?
The Pulpit Commentary, Isaiah II p.319-320, Isaiah 54:10, (W. M. Statham)
Gold Nugget 259
A Father Still
