Dry Places and Deadbeat Dads

Earlier today, while thinking on the ways and nature of God, I came to the following conclusion: If the “image of God” that most Christians worshiped were embodied in an actual human father, he would have been reported to authorities and arrested LONG ago for child abuse and parental neglect!

"Is that You, God?"

The unfortunate reality is that many, if not most, in Christendom have adopted a view of God the Father that stands in absolute contradiction to the New Covenant nature of God.  At best, we view Him as a Father who works far from home, and comes to visit us on the weekends–typically on Sundays from about 10:30-noon.  At worst, we see Him as abusive and as one who periodically abandons us in the name of “teaching us a lesson”–or, the old religious favorite, for the purpose of “building character“.  Certainly a physical human being, who treated his children in the way that we praise God for treating us, would be well deserving of some hard and lonely jail time.

Have you read of the ingenious method of parenting developed by Dr. Gerald Derelict?  As a single father, Gerald realized that he was failing miserably, and decided that it was time to “up the ante” in regards to his parenting skills.  You see, Mr. Derelict was very concerned with ensuring that his children grew up to be healthy and productive members of society.  As a result of this desire, Gerald developed the “abandonment method”.  He had read all of the books on parenting, and had found all of the varying methods to be lacking in efficacy.  The “abandonment method” would be Gerald’s grand “opus”, his earth-shaking contribution to the world of child-rearing.

The method is actually quite simple: in the child’s most vulnerable and formative years, the parent is to abandon the child and leave them to care for themselves. Now, it would be downright cruel to leave the child feeling as though he or she were completely alone, so the parent is required to write a series of letters to leave for their child.  These are meant to serve as reminders that, although mommy and daddy may not be literally present, they are indeed present in some sort of mystical, metaphysical, metaphorical way…whatever that means.  This will prove to be a great comfort to the child while they learn to fend for themselves.  This stage of the “abandonment method” is known as the desert season.  There can be no doubt that this experience will prove to be one of the most glorious experiences in the child’s life.  They will one day sit around a cozy fire with mom and dad, reflecting one those glorious years as children when they were abandonned and left to their own devices.  Mom and dad will warmly smile at  one another, as one by one the children recount their glorious tales of adventure in the land of neglect.  It is expected that most children who are reared under the “abandonment method” will become some of the most productive members of society.  We’re talking doctors, lawyers, heads of state, ambassador’s and nobel-prize winners.  Parent-less-ness will eventually prove to be one of the greatest keys to a child’s success in life!

Now…back to reality.

I’m sure that you didn’t waste even a moment of your time believing that the, “abandonment method” was a real and viable method of parenting.  Of course, an individual who practiced such foolishness would be considered, as the good doctor’s name suggests, derelict in their duties.  If we find this type of behavior to be despicable and damaging in the natural, why on earth do we think that it would be effective in regards to our spiritual life?  The popular notion that God the Father takes us through seasons of spiritual dryness and draught, in an attempt to teach us of His love and character, is absolutely frightening and downright unscriptural.

Statistics show that children abandonned by their parents in their formative years, or in vulnerable stages in their lives, typically do not wind up becoming the envy of their peers.  Now, there are exceptions to every statistic, but on average, children from fatherless homes are more likely to spend time in prison, live in poverty and have very little sense of purpose in their lives.  How is it then, that we think that God the Father would periodically abandon us in the name of perfecting us?  If there is no true change or transformation outside of His presence, how in the world could we be changed into His likeness outside of it?  The truth is, if God truly operated that way, He would be working against the very thing He is aiming at accomplishing.

The scriptures make it clear, Jesus Christ is our propitiation (1 John 2:2).  Put in plain english, the word propitiation simply means, substitute.  This means that on the Cross, Jesus Christ experienced as His reality, everything that belonged to us–namely the pain of our self imposed alienation and separation from God.  After falling in the Garden of Eden, mankind began a centuries long migration away from the face of the Father.  Why?  The overwhelming shame and guilt he carried due to his brokenness deceived him into believing that God was no longer on his side.  In his warped mind, God had ceased to be Father and had instead become judge, jury and executioner.  Man could no longer stand in God’s presence without feeling a profound sense of shame, worthlessness and fear of reprisal.  This feeling was not coming from the outside from God, but rising up from the inside of man’s broken heart.  He now saw God as separate, distant and at odds with himself.  For example, as God the Father came to fellowship with Adam after he had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam runs and hides himself among the trees of the garden (GEN 3:9-10).  A myth emerged from Eden that day, a myth which stated that God could no longer be among men due to their fallen state.  This was a reality which existed only in man’s mind, however, as God continues to stay active and operative among men for many centuries.  It was only in man’s now hostile mind that he was alienated and separated from his Father.  (EPH 4:18, COL 1:21, ROM 8:7)

Though self imposed, this separation felt real to man.  The pain and torment that this self inflicted wound caused was overwhelming, destroying man’s emotions and causing him to run headlong into wickedness and filth.  As an imagined alien, there was no depth to which man would not sink in an effort to numb the pain of separation which he felt.  God had to intervene.  How did He choose to do so?  By becoming one with us.  You see, on the Cross Christ did not simply become a “sacrifice for sins”…he became you and I!  (ROM 6:6)  He became you and I with all of our mythology, baggage and false beliefs about who God is and how He behaves towards us.  He experienced life and relationship to His Father through the lens of our brokenness for those six agonizing hours on the Cross.  This horrifically glorious experienced met it’s climax when Christ, looking at His present sufferings through the lens of our beliefs cries out:  “My God, My God, Why have YOU forsaken Me?”

Up until this moment, when Jesus directly speaks to God, He always addresses Him as “Father”.  Yet in this moment, He simply refers to Him as my “God”.  Think of a child who’s father also happened to be the President of the United States.  Everyone else in the President’s inner circle refers to him as “Mr. President”.  His child, however, has the sole privlege of referring to him as “daddy”!  Jesus looking up at His Father and referring to Him as “My God”, would be akin to the President’s child referring to his “daddy” as “Mr. President”.  In this moment, Jesus is looking at the Father, through our eyes and experiencing our imagined severance from the Father.  Here is Jesus, spiked to a tree in His most desperate and vulnerable moment, feeling as though the Father had literally abandoned Him!  It is in this moment that Jesus hurls that blistering cry heavenward, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”

Do you understand, dear reader, that in this moment, Jesus experiences the abandonment which you and I saw ourselves as being partakers of?  The heartbreaking feeling of the Father’s absence was the product of our pain and vain imaginings, and yet Christ stepped right into the midst of it and drank it down to the very last drop!  Bear in mind that when Christ asks, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”, He is quoting the prophetic words of David in Psalms 22:1.  If you read through this Psalms, it’s like having a front row seat to the crucifixion, before the practice of crucifixion even existed.  Clearly, David is prophesying about the sufferings of Christ on Calvary, which begin which Christ questioning His Father for seemingly abandoning Him.  Yet, Psalms 22 does not end nearly as dismally as it began.

For the first 21 verses, Christ is experiencing pain, life and God through our fallen eyes. However, in verses 22-24, Christ changes gears and declares the truth concerning His situation:

22 I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the congregation I will praise you.
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or disdained
     the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

The Scripture tells us that Christ, far from being abandoned, was heard by His Father and not hidden from His face.  In verse 22, Christ declares His passion to speak to His brothers of His Father’s true nature.  Hebrews 2:12 clearly tells us that this is a part of Christ present day ministry.  What was the image of the Father that Christ was passionate about declaring to us?  He wanted us to see the Father as the One who never abandoned or hid his face from the broken.  As a Father who never abandons His children in the midst of their sufferings and pain.  Christ’s original question concerning His abandonment was asked from our perspective.  The answer in verse 24, however, comes from His perspective.

My friends, in light of this reality, let me say that it is an audacious and downright offensive thing to claim that God abandons us to “wilderness seasons” or “deserts” in the name of perfecting us!  If Christ stepped into my reality and fully experienced the horror of my own misconceptions of His Father, what on earth am I doing still wallowing in them?  Would it not seem foolish to you and I, to continue making monthly payments on a credit card which has already been paid off?  Would that not make the pay-off seem absolutely absurd?  Would you continue on as an indentured servant if your debts were paid by someone greater?  Would it not be an offense to the one who paid off your debt for you to continue toiling and laboring?

In the same way, I’m afraid that many modern believers feel the need to toil and labor under the weight of sin’s penalties, when all of those penalties have been paid.  Jesus did not become your substitute, only to put you through the same agonizing experiences that He endured.  Would it not be calling His efforts and labors, “not good enough”?  Friend, much pop-theology of the day is based not on an understanding of Christ’s finished work, but on human experiences wrongly interpreted.  God never abandons us, or takes His presence away from us as punishment.  We have this flawed perception that God teaches us maturity by distancing Himself from us, but this is altogether wrong and is the anti-thesis of the Cross of Christ!  God does not go off on a road trip in order to prepare us for ministry!  Nor does He, when we happen to have a bad day, go and hang with those more appreciative of His goodness–while leaving us to boil in our misery.  God is as present with you on your best day as He is on your worst day.  Your confidence in who you are as a Son and who God is as your Father, is what determines your ability to discern His presence!

Some say that while God may not “abandon” us to teach us lessons, He does change the way that He manifests Himself to us, in order to teach us to discern Him in every season.  What good parent would regularly and purposely change their appearance in an attempt to get their children to know them on a deeper level?  Is confusion a good teacher?  Would it be wise for parents to sport a lumberjack-esque beard one day, and a clean shaven, silky smooth, GQ face the next?  Perhaps then they could really up the ante by dying their hair a deep purple, and then the next day shave it into a glowing yellow mow-hawk!  The next step could be for them to speak to their children only through a voice-altering device.  Then they could experiement with contact lenses–they could change their eye color every other day for the rest of their children’s lives.  Then they’ll really mix things up by having plastic surgery in order to make themselves look like Bill Cosby!  At the end of this little exercise, however, their child will become truly mature, and able to recognize their parent in any form that they may choose to manifest themselves!  Because, after all, mommy and daddy are just a little bit mentally unstable and change their personality types nearly everyday!  What a valuable learning experience this will be for the little ones!

Now that sounds absolutely ridiculous, and it should.  But we tend to view God as a Father who regularly pulls these very same stunts, all in an effort to pull us closer to Him.  No doubt, such behavior would confuse and scar a child.  They would never know who to trust, or even know who was who for that matter.  Again, why do we think that God would behave in such a way?  Why do we view a relationship with God as being some sort of morbid game in which we have to learn to see through all of His disguises?  Is God the Father really some bizarre head-case, whose eccentricities we just have to learn to live with?  Absolutely not!  Friend, under the New Covenant, because of Christ’s finished work, intimacy with the Father is not confusing.  It is not something erratic and unstable that changes daily.  It is a steady and sure path that we can walk upon with confidence!

We do not serve a deadbeat dad or an eccentric Father!  We serve a Father who is madly in love with us and Who has made every effort to ensure that we live in unbroken, non-confusing communion with Him.  We really need to come back to a place of divine simplicity in our view of God as our Father.  Jesus Christ dismantled our imagined orphan-hood on the Cross so that we would never have to experience the pain of abandonment again.  Your Father is always with you.  He’s always present.  Never more, never less.  His presence is not like the waves of the ocean that come in only to go out again.  He has come once and for all through the Person of the Holy Spirit and any teaching that describes a God who comes and goes is either false or old covenant in it’s understandings.  Your relationship with the Father is secure, and as a result, so should you be!

Consider the words of Jesus is Matthew 7:9-11:

9 ”Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

What Jesus is telling us is that if common sense would keep an earthly Father from behaving in ridiculous and abusive ways towards his children, how much better off do you think we must be having God as our Father?  If it would land an earthly dad in jail, then what makes us think a heavenly Father would behave in such a way?  Friends, your Dad is a good Dad!  There’s no abuse in His eyes.  No manipulation in His voice.  No violence or pent-up aggression in His hands.  Because of Christ, we are sons of God forever, and God is forever pleased with us in Christ!

Not Abandoned,

Jeff

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